SARAH JESSICA Parker
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EDITOR’S LETTER Sarah Bailey met Matthew Williamson at his showroom, page 160
Cover star Sarah Jessica Parker is a source of inspiration, page 60
It’s a serendipitous business putting together an issue of a magazine… with ideas stirred into the pot from all corners of the office. It so happens this month that several of the features represent milestones from my personal history. Our cover star SJP’s era-defining show Sex In The City was utterly inspirational when I was editing Elle magazine back in the early noughts and when I moved to the West Village in New York to experience the vertiginous world of fashion media on the other side of the pond – I had a photograph of the actress (shot by Mark Abrahams) on my mantelpiece as a reminder to myself of my giddy, grown-up adventure. These days SJP continues to be a lightning rod in the pop cultural landscape – stylish, thoughtful, ever evolving and creative. I ADORE Divorce and I hope you enjoy Annabel Meggeson’s brilliant profile of her as much as I did. Elsewhere in the issue I interview my fellow Mancunian, the prodigiously talented Matthew Williamson, someone who I have known and written about throughout his 20 amazing years in
design. The debate continues about the see-now buy-now movement in fashion (the reinvention of Williamson’s own business is pretty salutary) and the disruption of retail in general. On this note, we profile three stylesetters who are seizing the momentum and turning their incredible personal aesthetic into thoroughly modern and individualistic brands on their own terms in Meet the style curators (page 37). (It was only as I started to pen this letter that it dawned on me that I have had the pleasure of working with each of these dynamos over the years.) Last month, we asked readers and contributors to share what gives their life meaning for Red Happiness Day. Apart from what we would all surely say – love, family, freedom – I toyed with what my answer would be and concluded that self-expression had to be high on my list. There are some extraordinary firecrackers and differencemakers in this month’s issue (turn to page 68 for our careers package). I hope their stories might fire you up to do as it says in the headline above. Enjoy.
Editor-in-chief SARAH BAILEY
THIS MONTH I HAVE BEEN: WATCHING Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag (even if you hate episode one, stick with it – I loved it); ENJOYING some northern glamour at The Principal hotel in Manchester; DAZZLED by Amadeus at the National Theatre; CONTEMPLATING kitten heels; TWEETING @SarahRedMag
8 REDONLINE.CO.UK MARCH 2017
JJ Martin, one of our style curators, page 37
See our great SUBSCRIBER OFFER on page 59
PHOTOGRAPHS STEPHANIE SIAN SMITH, SIMON UPTON/TRUNK ARCHIVE, MATTEO CHERUBINO
EXPRESS YOURSELF
26
165 100
46
Q ON THE COVER
CONTENTS
STYLE 142
25 The great beauty Warm up with Gucci’s bloom bag 26 Spring in your step Style gets a refresh with heritage prints, ruffles and gobstopper gems 37 Meet the style curators Three insiders share their secrets to conquering the fashion world 45 It’s time to blush Banish winter blues with rosy hues 46 Shoe news Step it up with boots and kitten heels 48 Fashion’s forever pieces Three sets of female family members talk Chanel, tweed and heritage 52 Jewellery news
FASHION
99 It’s show time It’s spring and things are hotting up
14 REDONLINE.CO.UK MARCH 2017
March 2017
100 All woman Embrace modern femininity with a cacophony of ruffles and power prints 112 Berlin calling Eighties brights meet Eastern European austerity – go bold 122 What to wear now Make your statement with big earrings and grown-up slogan tees
FEATURES
57 Love is… It’s not all hearts and flowers in the Green household this month 58 Women are your allies, not rivals Ditch the jealousy and build support systems, says Chelsea Handler 60 Sarah Jessica Parker on marriage and Divorce The icon on love, partnership, and why you can’t always be in control
68 Supercharge your career Reboot your work life with these tips from the experts 71 New year, new tech career Two leading gurus at Sky give their tips on how to break into tech 74 The first crush is always the deepest Four writers reveal their celebrity crushes that left a lasting impression 80 21 days to better orgasms Daisy Buchanan explores whether you can truly banish your pleasure inhibitions in a new three-week plan 84 “I am a machine. Any negatives I will make into a positive” Comedian, marathon-runner, future politician – is there anything Eddie Izzard can’t do? Viv Groskop finds out 95 One giant leap Meet the three amazing women behind astronaut John Glenn’s 1962 orbit of the Earth
142
CONTENTS 48
156
160
156 Sorbet shades for your home Make your home into a haven 160 Monsieur butterfly Sarah Bailey meets the king of print Matthew Williamson
97 Join us to get smart in 2017 Don’t miss our session with Gillian Anderson and Jennifer Nadel 194 My favourite thing For designer Holly Fulton, it’s a hand-painted wooden horse
ESCAPES
BEAUTY
173 Raw desserts The most satisfying of treats 179 Stronger, one disaster at a time How Ruth Hogan found the key to recovery after trauma
129 Bohemian rhapsody Reawaken your senses with Jo Malone’s Bloomsbury Set colognes 130 Pinks for every skin tone Get ready to glow for spring 138 Reboot your make-up bag with Nars Get your new-season look at this special Red and Nars event 139 No pain, no gain? Rosie Green hopes a ‘reshaping’ programme will fast-track her to slim 142 The spring skin superheroes The 10 new must-haves 144 7 (secret) ways to look younger The new anti-ageing fixes that can help roll back the years 146 Beauty notebook
LIVING
149 Zingy, bright, fresh Forced rhubarb is the order of the day 150 Time for a cardamom gin? Gather your friends and devour Flora Shedden’s perfect spring recipes
165 Far, far away... Skip winter on a distant shore
SELF
150
183 Work out less, get fit faster How the microworkout could revolutionise your fitness regime 184 Ask Philippa Our agony aunt tackles your issues
OFFERS
59 Great reasons to subscribe to Red 171 Exclusive subscriber offers
IN EVERY ISSUE 8 Editor’s letter 23 Say it, write it, tweet it 41 In next month’s issue 89 Reads Must-read memoirs 193 Stars
THIS MONTH’S COVERS Photographs Simon Upton/Trunk Archive. Recreate Sarah Jessica’s look using Hydra Sparkling Range, Mister Smooth Primer, Teint Couture Balm, Mister Light, Prisme Visage, Prisme Blush, Bonne Mine Bronzer, Brow Experts, Prisme Yeux, Khol Couture Eyeliner, Noir Couture Mascara, Le Rouge Perfecto, Le Rouge A Porter, all Givenchy. Subscribe to Red to receive the limited-edition covers (above, right); see page 59 for details.
MARCH 2017 REDONLINE.CO.UK 15
CONTRIBUTORS March 2017 Wendy Ide
Sarah Bailey
Deputy editor Sarah Tomczak Creative director Tanita Montgomery
Meets the women of NASA, on page 95
Fashion director Oonagh Brennan Group managing editor Merrick Cassanova Picture director Beverley Croucher Entertainment director Rosamund Dean Fashion & beauty bookings director Karina Dial Acting digital editor Hannah Dunn Workflow director Cathy Levy
BEST THINGS IN LIFE
O Lazy breakfasts O Tokyo at Halloween O Movies at the Cannes Film Festival
Features editor Natasha Lunn Associate editor (Living) Pip McCormac Beauty director Annabel Meggeson Health director Brigid Moss Fashion features director Alice Olins Executive fashion & beauty director Kim Parker Fashion director-at-large Nicola Rose
FASHION & BEAUTY FEATURES & LIFESTYLE
MY CELEBRITY CRUSH AS A TEENAGER WAS...
@RedFashionTeam @RedBeautyTeam Style editor Lauren T Franks Merchandising executive Sophie Hooper Fashion assistant Gabriella Minchella Fashion intern Anisha Parbhakar-Brown Beauty editor-at-large Rosie Green Acting beauty editor Alexandra Friend Junior beauty writer Rebecca Hull
Ian McCulloch from Echo & The Bunnymen.
Flora Shedden
Shares her recipes for entertaining, on page 150 BEST THINGS IN LIFE
O Lady Grey tea with milk O The emerald green velvet heels I bought for my 21st birthday O My hometown, Dunkeld, in the snow O Fresh sheets MY CELEBRITY CRUSH AS A TEENAGER WAS...
Chris Craymer
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Michael Fassbender. I saw him in Fish Tank and decided to marry him.
Photographs our pink beauty shoot, on page 130 BEST THINGS IN LIFE
O My wife Zoe and kids Jack and Katie O Our King Charles Spaniel, Toffee O Walking on the beach MY CELEBRITY CRUSH AS A TEENAGER WAS...
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Mouchette Bell, Deborah Brett, Viv Groskop, Skye Gyngell, Sali Hughes, Caroline Issa, India Knight, David Loftus, Marina O’Loughlin, Sarra Manning, Sarfraz Manzoor, Evyan Metzner, Thomasina Miers, Philippa Perry, Kate Spicer, Alexandra Stedman, Steph Stevens, Stephanie Theobald, Sharon Walker, Frances Wasem
@RedMagDaily General enquiries 020 3535 9152 Editorial coordinator/junior fashion executive Lucia Ferigutti lucia.ferigutti@hearst.co.uk Features writer Cyan Turan Features intern Megan Sutton
REDONLINE.CO.UK
Social media and fashion editor Roanna Price Fashion and beauty writer Sarah Ilston
ART
Art editor Zuki Turner Designer Jenna Plumb Picture editor Rebecca Shannon
GROUP EDITORIAL PRODUCTION Chief sub-editor Hannah Jones Deputy chief sub-editor Samantha de Haas Senior sub-editor Francesca Cotton
GROUP PUBLISHING DIRECTOR
Jacqueline Euwe
ADVERTISING
Brand director Lee Bailey 020 7312 4149 Brand manager Lucy Burnham 020 7312 3062 Digital brand director Sara Hauffé-Brett 020 7339 4564 Client sales director Sam O’Shaughnessy 020 7312 273
Brand development director Alistair Wood PA to group publishing director Chloe Sherard-Knott
PRODUCTION
Procurement & production director John Hughes 020 7439 5200 Production manager Pavel Pachovsky 020 7439 5619 PROMOTIONS Production coordinator Group partnerships director Laura Chase Carl Latter 020 7439 5402 Partnerships director Sarah Wheatley Creative solutions art director Simeen Richardson CIRCULATION & MARKETING Acting creative solutions art directors Head of consumer sales & marketing Daljit Kaur Babber, Jo Jo Ma James Hill Head of project management Group marketing manager Natasha Chamberlin Alexander Stanhope Senior marketing executive Tilly Michell Head of marketing promotions EVENTS Charlotte Cunliffe Head of events & sponsorship Victoria Archbold Head of digital marketing Seema Kumari
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
Mick Jagger. He’s an icon.
Anna Jones
Karina Dial
Co-ordinated our Berlin Calling fashion, on page 112 BEST THINGS IN LIFE
O Hearing my son say “I love you” O My husband’s sense of humour O Family holidays, sand underfoot MY CELEBRITY CRUSH AS A TEENAGER WAS...
River Phoenix – in Running On Empty. So handsome.
HEARST MAGAZINES UK
Managing director, brands Michael Rowley Chief revenue officer Duncan Chater Chief financial officer Claire Blunt Chief digital officer Paul Cassar Circulation & marketing director Reid Holland Chief operations director Clare Gorman Director, Hearst Made Jane Wolfson Head of digital sales Hayley Cochrane Strategic partnerships director Becky Gee HR director Surinder Simmonds Director of communications Lisa Quinn Head of PR Karen Meachen
HEARST MAGAZINES INTERNATIONAL
Senior vice president/CFO & general manager Simon Horne Senior vice president/international publishing director Jeannette V Chang Senior vice president/editorial director Kim St Clair Bodden Fashion/entertainment director Kristen Ingersoll
Red is a member of the Independent Press Standards Organisation (which regulates the UK’s magazine and newspaper industry). We abide by the Editors’ Code Of Practice and are committed to upholding the highest standards of journalism. If you think that we have not met those standards and want to make a complaint, please contact complaints@hearst.co.uk or visit hearst.co.uk/hearst-magazines-uk-complaintsprocedure. If we are unable to resolve your complaint, or if you would like more information about IPSO or the Editors’ Code, contact IPSO on 0300 123 2220 or visit ipso.co.uk.
22 REDONLINE.CO.UK MARCH 2017
YOUR SAY
SAY IT
WRITE IT
TWEET IT If you have any news, views or issues you’d like to see covered, we’d love to hear from you
TIME TO MOVE In the January issue, Cathy Struthers introduced us to a new way of keeping fit – measuring metabolic minutes rather than counting calories and clocking up time at the gym. Like us, you were taken with the new exercise outlook. “After reading your article I felt like a massive weight had been lifted off my shoulders,” mum-of-two Miranda Theobald emailed to
say. “I booked in for my first Pilates lesson in over a year last week but after 1am and 3am wake-up calls from my baby, then a 4am start with my toddler, I was on my knees and just couldn’t do it… This article made me realise it’s okay not to be a gym bunny, and that I’m probably moving and exercising more at a soft play session than if I did do my weekly gym class. And I get to spend more time with my precious boys. Thank you for the insight.”
LIFE WITHOUT JO COX In the year after her death, Jess Phillips paid tribute to her formidable friend, and many of you were touched by the MP’s poignant words. @clare_clare449 Such an incredibly moving article on Jo Cox in this month’s @RedMagDaily. An amazing tribute to all she stood for @jessphillips @judeandmeggie @jessphillips Just read your lovely, heartfelt article about Jo Cox in CLOCKWISE, @RedMagDaily. Thanks FROM TOP LEFT: for sharing a bit of her @susanmcdill; with us. Inspirational. @krissi_s_images; @lucyfives @jessphillips Just @lifeasourlittlefamily read your tribute to Jo Cox in
ILLUSTRATION MAGUMA
ON INSTAGRAM You took to social media to share your snaps of the January issue
Our mail of the month wins a Givenchy goodie bag of ultra-hydrating skincare products worth £101. Thanks to Hydra Sparkling #ShineNoMore Mattifying & Perfecting Fluid (50ml), Hydra Sparkling One-Minute Glow Powder (30g) and Hydra Sparkling Twinkling Eyes Icy Eye Reviving Gel (15ml), moisturised and luminous skin just became simpler. This month’s star letter prize goes to Lucy Ives, mentioned in Life without Jo Cox.
Cathy Struthers’ feature on a new way of keeping fit gave us all a rethink
@RedMagDaily. It was very moving. Never stop speaking up. We need women like you. WRITE TO:
Red, 33 Broadwick Street, London W1F 0DQ Email: red@redmagazine.co.uk Tweet us: @RedMagDaily Comment: Redonline.co.uk Like us: Facebook.com/ RedMagazine RED’S AWARDS BEST PRACTICAL GUIDE TO FRAGRANCE (Kim Parker) Jasmine Awards 2016 MARKS & SPENCER FOOD PORTRAITURE AWARD 2015 (Jonathan
Gregson) Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year Awards 2015 JASMINE SOUNDBITE: MAGAZINES (Annabel Meggeson) Jasmine Awards 2015 BEST MONTHLY CONSUMER MAGAZINE JOURNALIST & JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR
(Annabel Meggeson) Johnson & Johnson Skincare Journalism Awards 2014 BEST JOURNALISM: BEAUTY
(Annabel Meggeson and Rosie Green) & BEST LAYOUT: BEAUTY (Annabel Meggeson and Haley Austin) P&G Beauty & Grooming Awards 2013 BEST DIGITAL FRAGRANCE EXPERIENCE (Annabel
Meggeson) The Jasmine Awards 2012 CONSUMER MAGAZINE OF THE YEAR PPA Awards 2011
MARCH 2017 REDONLINE.CO.UK 23
Style
Edited by OONAGH BRENNAN
The GREAT BEAUTY
The passage from winter to spring can be long and unpredictable. Unless, of course, you turn to Gucci – where the flowers always grow, thanks to the exuberant eye of Alessandro Michele. So take this perfect specimen of a bag and wear it with everything – because a cacophony of red, gold and wild blooms should never be left out in the cold.
STYLING SOPHIE HOOPER. ART DIRECTION ZUKI TURNER
Photograph VICTORIA LING
Bag, £1,130, Gucci
For more of this season’s must-have bags, go to REDONLINE.CO.UK
MARCH 2017 REDONLINE.CO.UK 25
Earrings, £6, Accessorize
Necklace, £75, Toolally
Glasses, £249, Céline
HIP HERITAGE Prada S/S 17
Gucci S/S 17
HIGHSTREET STAR Coat, £185, Finery
Bag, £39, & Other Stories
If you’re searching for a spring style hero, pause here. The check trench possesses something fresh: a retro print and big, new volumes. It’s the proportions that make the difference, so don’t be shy.
NEW SEASON
SPRING IN YOUR STEP
T-shirt, £99, Essentiel Antwerp at Collenandclare.com
Top, £354, Malene Oddershede Bach
NEW STYLES FOR S/S 17 WILL BRING FRESH ZEST TO YOUR WARDROBE. MEET IRRESISTIBLE, SUPER-FEMININE RUFFLES, GLITZY TOPS AND GOBSTOPPER GEMS
The striped shirt
Style tip
Trousers sit long and extra wide. Wear with a crisp white top and loud checks
Shoes, £565, Prada
The season’s must-have investment buy. Every wardrobe needs one
Shoes, £160, Kurt Geiger
Watch, £165, Skagen
Skirt, £320, NO.21 at Farfetch.com
Shirt, £155, Sportmax
Bag, £460, Longchamp Trousers, £230, Solace London 26 REDONLINE.CO.UK MARCH 2017
STYLE Top, £350, Kenzo at Veryexclusive.co.uk
NEW PRETTY
Dress, £125, & Other Stories. Belt, £26, Urban Outfitters
Victorian lace trims, frill-edged skirts and chiffon maxi dresses. We’ve been seduced by the new feminine trend, but how to make it fresh and modern? With pirate swagger. Yes, that’s right: wide leather belts and ankle boots stop ditsy in its tracks.
Earrings, £10, French Connection
Skirt, £320, Dorothee Schumacher Bracelet, £59, Marc Cain
Bag, £310, Philosophy
Style tip
Philosophy S/S 17
Erdem S/S 17
Bags go micro for spring
Top, £1,121, Zimmermann
Boots, £825, Jimmy Choo
Dress, £350, Three Graces London. Belt, £24, Next Top, £285, Nanushka Bag, £1,080, Marni
Style tip
Achieve Philosophy’s fresh glow (above) by mixing The Estée Edit Beam Team Hydrate + Glow (£34) into your moisturiser for instant dewiness, then patting the bronze highlighter from the cap across your cheekbones for a sun-kissed look. Finish with a slick of Chanel’s Rouge Crayon de Couleur in Rose Violine (£28) on lips
Editor’s note Clogs, £65, Next
Clogs are having a moment. Choose studded styles in dark brown and black, and wear with diaphanous fabrics »
Skirt, £229, Whole 9 Yards
Shoes, £39, Charles & Keith
MARCH 2017 REDONLINE.CO.UK 27
Gucci S/S 17
STYLE A cocktail top is the ultimate style hack: full of punch (mega ruffles, humongous shoulders, sweet-wrapper fabrics) but low on effort (just add jeans). It’s dinner-party dressing with ’80s disco lights. We’re smitten.
Brooch, £68, Butler & Wilson
Shirt, £145, Eric Bompard
Earrings, £235, Gucci at Net-a-porter.com
Earrings, £6.99, H&M
The shimmer shirt
Shirt, £38, River Island
A classic shape in a showstopper fabric makes this trend accessible. Wear with faded denim and heels Jeans, £270, EDIT
Bag, £895, Sophie Hulme
Top, £540, Emilio de la Morena at Matchesfashion.com
Shoes, £195, Russsell & Bromley
Pretty up velvet with a denim pencil skirt, slingbacks and pink accessories
Gucci S/S 17 Antonio Marras S/S 17
Watch, £179, Citizen Skirt, £38, Lost Ink at Asos.com
Shoes, £450, Paul Andrew at Net-a-porter.com Shoes, £32, Topshop
Elisabetta Franchi S/S 17
Turn down the gaudy dial and mix with elegant cream tuxedo trousers and metallic brogues Trousers, £278, Elizabeth and James
The velvet off-theshoulder
Ring, £109, Cielle London at Jewelstreet.com
The retro ruffle
Earrings, £525, Eden Diodati at Harvey Nichols
Costume drama
Excess: some think it’s garish, we think that gobstopper jewels make it all okay. Even a sparkled triumvirate of ring, earring and necklace is not beyond possibility Earrings, £215, Oscar de la Renta at Liberty
Earrings, £600, El Mito de Gea at Jewelstreet.com »
Necklace, £158, Butler & Wilson
Elisabetta Franchi S/S 17
Earrings, £290, Alexandra Alberta at Jewelstreet.com
Saint Laurent S/S 17
Isabel Marant S/S 17
EIGHTIES TOP HITS
Ring, £6.99, H&M MARCH 2017 REDONLINE.CO.UK 29
STYLE Earrings, £460, Marni Shirt, £39.50, M&S Autograph. Corset, £472, Tibi
Glasses, £330, Cutler & Gross
Watch, £270, Thomas Sabo
Coat, £399, Tiger of Sweden. Dress, £110, Laura Ashley. Belt, £25, River Island
The bustier
A waist-cincher for the modern woman, this won’t just up your fashion ante, it’ll also hide that breakfast pain au chocolat. Tick and tick
The corset Trousers, £713, Zimmermann
Bag, £69, & Other Stories
Moulin Rouge this look is not, rather, the layered corset harps back to experimental Commes des Garçons and Yohji Yamamoto days. Find your edge
Bag, £690, J&M Davidson
Shoes, price on request, Robert Clergerie
OVER THE TOP
Shoes, £725, Aquazzura
Top, £45, COS. Cami, £90, Gestuz
First it was pyjamas, then the slip dress came to the fore over winter jumpers and now the rest of your underwear drawer is up for grabs as a viable sartorial option.
Earrings, £240, Aurélie Bidermann at Matchesfashion.com
Earrings, £95, Elizabeth and James
Jeans, £215, Masscob Bag, £700, Sportmax
The cami
Another ’90s trend making a comeback. Layer over a neutral T-shirt, add graphic earrings and your best denim 30 REDONLINE.CO.UK MARCH 2017
Watch, £1,550, Rado
Prada S/S 17
Jacket, £135, Comino Couture
Sandals, £420, Stella McCartney at Matchesfashion.com
Top, £995, Vilshenko. Bralet, £135, Whole 9 Yards
The bra
Keep it simple (’50s cotton bras are a good reference) then layer over lace to subvert any The Talented Mr Ripley associations » Jeans, £193, IRO
Bag, £1,015, Pierre Hardy
Shoes, £115, Topshop Unique
Off-White S/S 17
Dries Van Noten S/S 17
STYLE
Earrings, £145, Cornelia Webb at Net-a-porter.com
Dress, £119.99, H&M
Bag, £278, Kate Spade New York
Sweatshirt, £170, MSGM Shoes, £79.99, H&M
Fun and frills
Style tip
SUPERSIZE SWEATS Athleisure, fitness luxe – call it what you want, just make sure it’s big. The maxi sweat works with skirts, dresses, jeans or anything else. Pick slogan prints and detailing for extra oomph.
Watch, £1,850, Hermès
Looking for a wardrobe that mixes frills with function? Look no further than H&M’s new Studio Collection. Think pink, sheer chiffon with shorts and choirboy-collar ruffles with chunky, plastic sandals. We’re heading to a store right now.
Editor’s note
Jeans, £59, Warehouse
Shoes, £120, Bimba Y Lola
The grown-up take on sweatshirts is stick to classic shades of navy or grey marl, and colour-block brights for off-duty. Choose neutral beige, cream and blush if you’re going smart
£95, Être Cécile
£160, Zoe Karssen
32 REDONLINE.CO.UK MARCH 2017
£19.99, Mango
£210, SJYP at Harvey Nichols
£85, Mads Norgaard
For more new-season style go to REDONLINE.CO.UK
PHOTOGRAPHS GETTY IMAGES, IMAXTREE, HEARST STUDIOS
Trench, £450, Sandro
Polish up a bright slogan style with dark denim, gingham and a timeless trench
STYLE SHOPPING
Meet the STYLE CURATORS WITH IMPECCABLE STYLE SAVVY AND CAREER SMARTS, THESE THREE INSIDERS CONQUERED THE FASHION WORLD. NOW THEY’VE SET THEIR SIGHTS ON RETAIL, TOO Words ALICE OLINS Photographs PHILL TAYLOR and MATTEO CHERUBINO
ALEX EAGLE
Earring, £195, Charlotte Chesnais
The epitome of stylish discretion, Alex Eagle, 33, cut her fashion teeth as a PR at Joseph, before becoming a stylist. It was her clients’ continual requests to buy furniture from her apartment that inspired Eagle to create new retail experience The Store. It is housed in an airy space in Soho and sells a curated edit of fashion, interiors, art, photography and ceramics – and her own fashion label. Eagle is also creative director of The Store Berlin and The Store at Soho Farmhouse.
Shirt, £195, Alex Eagle
ON COLLABORATIONS
“I wanted to create everything myself with the designers that I find and meet – it’s fun and it’s special. I do tend to attract creative people, like the artist Luke Edward Hall and ceramicist Romy Northover who is behind Design By No. The people I collaborate with become friends – and I think through social media, customers now like to have a peek into my life. It makes the brand really genuine.”
Bracelet, £3,000, Irene Danilovich Bag, £600, Henry Cuir ON WARDROBE BUILDING BLOCKS
ON NEW-STYLE SHOPPING
“Modern retail is about being inspired, looking at some books, eating and listening to a nice record that is playing – it’s not about just going shopping.”
Alex Eagle in her Soho-based The Store
“I don’t have time to faff about getting dressed, especially since having a baby. So to make things easy and to empower women, our own brand shirt goes with our trousers, and our trousers with the blazers; it makes getting dressed and packing easy – it frees up your time. The collection is based on the way that men shop and dress. They don’t buy in the sale for the sake of it, they buy to last, and I want that ideal for women.” » MARCH 2017 REDONLINE.CO.UK 37
STYLE JJ MARTIN A self-declared vintagefashion obsessive, American style and design journalist JJ Martin, 43, has spent the past 15 years uncovering Milan’s vintage treasures – and growing her fashion network. A year ago, she combined the two and launched her madcap yet brilliant online magazine and vintage sales emporium, Ladoublej.com. Today, her site is a fully fledged brand, including an own-label collection. Martin is committed to doing things her own colourful way – and with brands such as Tory Burch, Armani and Max Mara now asking for her creative consulting skills, her vintage-print brand is Milan’s hottest go-to.
ON FASHION + SOCIAL MEDIA
“Fashion without cultural context is so dry. You need to tell stories with clothes, and there are new ways of communicating these days. You need to have autonomy – your own voice – to do things your way.”
Dress, £667, LaDoubleJ
ON DOING THINGS HER WAY
“I felt that fashion had become so boring – everything is so commercial, it made me feel numb. I felt I was seeing the same things everywhere and I wasn’t getting a great thrill any more. I just wanted to show my way of doing things. It’s bonkers and fun – it is a maximalist paradise – but everything on the site is my authentic vision. I truly believe that the less self-conscious you are, the better you do.”
JJ Martin in her Milan showroom Vintage dress, £775, Hermès
Vintage bag, £373, Roberta di Camerino Vintage necklace, £487, Elviretta
Vintage bracelet, £731, Gianni Versace by Ugo Correani
ON EXTENDING HER INFLUENCE
“So many well-known brands come to me because they realise they need a little bit of nicheness – we are not robots. I value a more intimate and authentic approach to fashion and that is what I am trying to do with LaDoubleJ. In the spring we are hosting a month-long pop-up with Bonmarché in Paris and a special mother/daughter event with Bergdorf Goodman in New York.” »
MARCH 2017 REDONLINE.CO.UK 39
STYLE ON FEARLESSNESS
“To have the ultimate creative freedom I had to create a platform that celebrates all the things I love, and that is unique in its sensibility and taste. Starting my own magazine made me not afraid to go there – to be able to put myself on the line and hope that someone gets it. I have never had business plans – I’ve done what I’ve done with the belief that it will resonate.”
By her own admission, Sophia Neophitou-Apostolou, 51, was a late starter in fashion. Before launching 10 Magazine at the age of 31, she worked for an architecture practice and Elle Deco – hence her continued interest in furniture and interior design. These days Neophitou-Apostolou is a successful stylist and fashion visionary, helping to shape some of London’s most successful brands – Anya Hindmarch, Roland Mouret and Antonio Berardi included. At the very end of 2016, she launched 10 Curates, an online marketplace that brings together all of her favourite brands.
Sophia NeophitouApostolou at one of her vendors, Les Couilles du Chien in London
ON THE PERSONAL TOUCH
“I choose everything; all the furniture, all the books, it’s about a dialogue. Roland Mouret introduced me to In Da Cottage, one of our vendors. We go shopping there together when I stay with him in Norfolk. I want Roland to discuss the shop on the site, to tell its story. We also profile each vendor we sell. It’s important to give the story of the designer because that is what customers buy into.”
ON SHOPPING ONLINE
Ring, £5,000, Delfina Delettrez
“I have become an online shopaholic – you can buy art online, I love it – it’s quite thrilling, to take the hassle out of things. 10 Curates is too global to have a physical store, plus I don’t know if it would be big enough to house all the things I love.”
COOL, CREATIVE, CHARITABLE The #SheInspiresMe hashtag, spearheaded by Women for Women International, is proof that social media has the power to drive positive and lasting charitable change. For International Women’s Day on 8th March, Women for Women isn’t just encouraging us to post images of inspiring women – it has created a whole fashion range alongside creative and independent female designers. Ones like Alice Temperley, Alex Eagle, Charlotte Olympia and the queen of colour and print, Mary Katrantzou,
40 REDONLINE.CO.UK MARCH 2017
Egoiste 11, £120, November Books
Flowerhead 002 by Stephen Doherty, £395
who has created a limited-edition scarf. “It depicts prominent female figures of the Ancient Minoan civilisation… I felt it helped reinforce the purpose behind the work of Women for Women International, empowering marginalised women in countries affected by war,” she says of the striking print (right). All of the profits will go to help women suffering from bereavement, sexual violence or torture to rebuild their lives. Wrap up and join the Mary Katrantzou (left) sisterhood. and Charlotte Olympia with their Women for Women designs
Bracelet, £750, Phoenix Roze
Les Cahiers by Marcel Proust, £450
Scarf, £350, Mary Katrantzou
HAIR AND MAKE-UP FRANCESCO MAMMONE AND LINDSEY POOLE
SOPHIA NEOPHITOUAPOSTOLOU
IN NEXT MONTH’S ISSUE
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GLOSSIER BOUNCIER PHOTOGRAPH CHRIS CRAYMER
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STYLE ACCESSORIES
It’s time TO BLUSH
Pink, as Diana Vreeland declared in the early ’60s, is the navy blue of India. The new basic is warmer than pure white and kinder to post-winter complexions than beige, and this season flamingo, blush and rose are nothing without a golden addendum. It’s a classic interiors combination and just the right side of kitsch – like this dreamy Lanvin bag. Cocktail earrings are still big news (note: Maison Margiela dazzlers), so start this candy gilt tale at your lobes, then let it pirouette across everything else. No winking boys required.
WORDS ALICE OLINS. STYLING SOPHIE HOOPER. ART DIRECTION ZUKI TURNER
Photograph VICTORIA LING
FROM LEFT: Shoes, £650, Dior. Handbag, £835 Lanvin at Net-a-porter.com. Earrings, £235, Maison Margiela at Net-a-porter. com. Sunglasses, £300, Louis Vuitton
For more style inspiration, shop our fashion gallery at REDONLINE.CO.UK
MARCH 2017 REDONLINE.CO.UK 45
£560, Gucci at Net-a-porter.com
STYLE
Dior S/S 17
Céline S/S 17
Wear slingback styles with a lace or fishnet sock and ankle-length jeans
SMITTEN KITTENS Yes, the kitten heel is back – not just with a vengeance, but with fold-down backs and sling straps. How? Why? It’s thanks to Vetements and Manolo Blahnik, the coolest cobbling collaboration going. Stick to a small heel and pointy toe and nothing can go wrong.
£355, Dorateymur at Net-a-porter.com
£120, Carvela
Style tip
Soften black, chunky styles with boho maxi dresses and prairie skirts
£79.99, Zara
Alexander McQueen S/S 17
Our love affair with statement ankle boots shows no sign of waning. Embrace embellished and heavy-tread lace-up styles that can handle cotton summer skirts and mom jeans with equal panache.
Price on request, Isa Arfen x Charlotte Olympia £55, Aldo
£55, Schuh
£295, Russell & Bromley
SPRING STOMPERS
Loewe S/S 17
£62, Topshop
£75, Next
£715, Saint Laurent at Net-a-porter.com
£625, Fendi at Net-aporter.com
46 REDONLINE.CO.UK MARCH 2017
£624, Laurence Dacade
£495, Tabitha Simmons
For more new shoe trends, go to REDONLINE.CO.UK
PHOTOGRAPHS GETTY IMAGES, IMAXTREE
Style tip
SH OE ne ws
£495, Sergio Rossi
HERITAGE
FASHION’S forever pieces THE UNIQUE MOTHER AND DAUGHTER RELATIONSHIP IS EVEN MORE INTRIGUING WHEN CLOTHES ARE THROWN INTO THE MIX. HERE, IN TIMELESS CHANEL CLASSICS, THREE FAMILIES TALK STYLE, COCO AND TWEED
dictum better than anyone else. Luxury isn’t blink-and-you’ll-miss-it trends – it’s saving to own pieces that you can hand down. Fast-forward 100 years, and Karl Lagerfeld showed Chanel’s spring collection with some of his models donning robot heads. It isn’t an obvious statement for a house known for refinement, but despite his automata accessories, the codes of the house remained resolutely intact. He cut Coco’s boucle tweed into a slouchy silhouette and breathed neon, aquamarine and the boldest blues through Chanel’s classic monochrome palette; fresh and recognisable in equal measure. Lagerfeld’s easy silk day dresses were a nod to the Instagram generation, while the pearls and pleats were infinitely wearable, whatever your age. Fashion is as much about belonging as standing out – and Chanel can do both. Getting one’s hands on a quilted leather 2.55 handbag remains a style rite of passage for many, and yet Chanel is also a byword for individuality – Lily Allen in her trainers-and-a-ball-gown days, the mystery of Jackie Kennedy, Amal Clooney’s sleek understatement are just
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a few of the unique expressions of Chanel’s interlocked Cs. To celebrate the new collection and the house’s enduring appeal, we asked three sets of stylish mothers and daughters to explore what Chanel means to them. Who says that fiftysomethings can’t take style inspiration from their Chanel-gazing offspring? Not us.
Chanel S/S 17
“FASHION FADES, ONLY STYLE REMAINS THE SAME,” SAID COCO CHANEL, who herself personified this
Chanel S/S 17
Words ALICE OLINS Photographs PHILIP SINDEN Styling NICOLA ROSE
STYLE BOUCLE TWEED
CHANEL HAS MY HEART BECAUSE…
Yasmin It’s timeless. I bought a pair of vintage tweed Chanel trousers that always seem to feel on trend. The fact that the clothes last feeds into my ethos for ethical shopping, too.
YASMIN MILLS, 50, founder, Yasmin’s Party Box LAUREN MILLS, 22, works in film production MADDIE MILLS, 17, student
MY FOREVER PIECE
FAMILY AND STYLE
Lauren We all check with each other when we’re buying something new – we have a Facebook chat where we discuss what we want to buy. As sisters, I defer to Maddie. She’s got taste; we’ll go to similar parties and wear similar things.
Maddie Two Chanel No. 5 perfume bottles – one large and one small. I love that Chanel is always true to the same visual style – it’s a story that feels special. Chanel makes me feel together and on it – I feel ready, poised to pounce. »
FROM LEFT: Lauren wears: Jacket, £4,670; blouse, £1,725; skirt, £1,880; earrings, £885, all Chanel. Yasmin wears: Sleeveless jacket, £3,090, Chanel. Maddie wears: Jacket, £4,560; jumper, £1,675; trousers, £1,075; bracelets, £520, all Chanel
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THE 2.55 CHANEL BAG JADE PARFITT,
38, model TABITHA ROSE PARFITT, one
ULTIMATE CHANEL MOMENT
MOTHER/DAUGHTER STYLE NOTES
It’s super fun dressing Tabitha in little outfits. And I love having a daughter, because my son isn’t interested in the wardrobe that I’ve amassed over the years – hopefully she’ll like to wear some pieces that I’ve picked up along the way. Now when I shop, it feels like I’m investing in her future, not just hoarding!
Jade wears: Jacket, price on request; jumpsuit, £3,485; bracelet, £1,175, all Chanel Tabitha holds: Bag, £2,580, Chanel
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HAIR TONY COLLINS AT EMMA DAVIES AGENCY. MAKE-UP KIM JACOB AT ANGELIE CO. STYLIST’S ASSISTANT GABRIELLA MINCHELLA. HAIR ASSISTANT NICOLA HARROWELL. MAKE-UP ASSISTANT JERRY CHAPLIN. ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHS GETTY IMAGES, IMAXTREE
I remember shooting a lookbook with Karl Lagerfeld at 3am. He’s an incredibly hard-working man – I love his passion; he’s involved at every level of the brand. Because of that, Chanel has such a recognisable language.
STYLE PEARLS RUBY HAMMER, 55,
leading make-up artist, co-founder Ruby & Millie REENA HAMMER, 30, managing director, Urban Retreat Salons
ON GROWN-UP CHIC
Ruby It is feminine and glamorous, but never ditsy. Chanel is grown-up in the least stuffy way possible. When I buy Chanel I feel I am buying into Coco’s story – the woman who overcame adversity to create such a legacy.
MOTHER/DAUGHTER STYLE NOTES
MY ULTIMATE CHANEL PIECE
Reena Well, I don’t own a jacket (yet!) – I’m not ready for it. I have a Chanel ring, though, that I wear every day; I adore it. It’s special because of who gave it to me, and because it’s Chanel it just means more. It’s something about the history and quality.
Ruby I draw confidence in how I look from Reena. I trust her. I know she’ll advise me right. But I’ve always tried to give her free rein in finding her own style – I’ve shown her the melting pot, and not competed with it. We are proud of each other.
FROM LEFT: Reena wears: Jacket, £6,160; dress, £2,310; necklace, £1,100, all Chanel. Shoes, vintage Chanel. Ruby wears: Jumpsuit, £3,885; necklace, £1,100; sandals, £710, all Chanel
MARCH 2017 REDONLINE.CO.UK 51
STYLE
JEWELLERY NEWS
Ring, £1,850, Jessie VE
SPOTLIGHT ON...
Jewelstreet.com Earrings, £8,100, Robinson Pelham
THE SWEETEST THING by KIM PARKER
I’m the kind of person who will happily (easily) consume chocolate in as many forms as possible throughout the day. If I can, I’ll have a hot chocolate with breakfast, an afternoon brownie and if possible, an after-dinner bar of Green & Blacks. So imagine my delight when I heard at last year’s Basel watch and jewellery fair that chocolate watches were going to be huge in 2017. Sadly for me, we’re not talking actual chocolate watches here
– we’re talking watches with beautifully smooth cocoa-coloured leather straps and bitter-chocolate ceramic accents. The most luxurious, Omega’s Seamaster Planet Ocean Co-Axial Master Chronometer (there’s a mouthful), has pretty rose-gold bezels and numbering – an elegant foil for all those rich, brown hues. This watch is delicate, but also satisfyingly chunky. Practical (scratch and water resistant) but also gorgeous (it turns out chocolate flatters all skin tones and looks great with any outfit). Frankly, it looks good enough to eat.
Dior S/S 17
Earrings, price on request, Dior
52 REDONLINE.CO.UK MARCH 2017
Ring set, price on request, Dior
IT’S A KIND OF MAGIC Designer Maria Grazia Chiuri’s first accessories for Dior are as captivating as her debut collection for the house. With a nod to S/S 17’s trend for all things occult (cue tarot symbols and pentagrams), we’re predicting that these lust-worthy studs, rings and velvet chokers will sell out fast.
JESSIE VE We love this Londonbased designer’s rings adorned with star signs, lucky numbers and hidden messages – as quirky and stylish as her Instagram.
Jessie VE’s stylish Instagram feed
Ring, £1,125, Jessie VE
YAMA Stunning graphic and minimalist designs by Maya Shkedy, an Israeli architect and goldsmith.
Necklace, £1,020, YAMA Jewelry
Earrings, £264, YAMA Jewelry
ROBINSON PELHAM Brightly hued Ring, £4,910, precious stones and Robinson bold shapes are a style Pelham signature of the three women For more spring/summer behind this accessory inspiration, head to REDONLINE.CO.UK British brand.
PHOTOGRAPHS HEARST STUDIOS, IMAXTREE, INSTAGRAM/JESSIEVE_LDN
Seamaster Planet Ocean Co-Axial Master Chronometer, £14,200, Omega
Packed with an amazing edit of 400 unique jewellery brands (from avant-garde designers to niche family ateliers around the world), Jewelstreet.com is our new go-to for chic pieces you won’t see on anyone else. Here are our top picks to seek out now…
LIFE’S ROSIE
ROSIE GREEN
Love is... ...more guinea-pig hunting than Scarlet & Violet bouquets in the Green household
ILLUSTRATION BETT NORRIS. PHOTOGRAPH JESS REFTEL EVANS AND MARTIN REFTEL. HAIR AND MAKE-UP LINDSEY POOLE
CHEERS. THAT IS WHAT MY FRIEND’S VALENTINE’S CARD SAID. To T, Happy Valentine’s Day. Cheers, Nes.
early-bird sitting. AM had obviously briefed the waiters to race us through all the courses at breakneck speed. We were on pudding by 6.59pm.
Which is up there with Alpha Male’s wedding speech in which the sum total of his romantic chat was, “Green PRESENTS ARE ANOTHER WORLD OF PRESSURE/ knows I love her.” PAIN. My friend Sophia was excited when her boyfriend Obviously, I was looking for some choked-up talk of said he’d got her something special (she was hoping for true devotion, maybe even a bit of I’m-the-luckiest-mana diamond solitaire). After leading her blindfolded to the in-the-world chat. I would have welcomed a few silent bedroom, anticipation building, she was proudly presented (but strong) Obama-style tears trickling down his cheeks. with some Halfords hubcaps. And my friend P, who isn’t But no, Alpha Male just moved on to thank his dad into the whole Valentine’s thing, nevertheless decided to for coming... 29 years ago. Hmm. send her boyfriend some cakes to show willing. She didn’t At this time of year, the teenage romantic in me can’t really read the details and they arrived at his testosteronehelp but have her expectations raised sky-high by all the drenched workplace, in a Little Bo Peep-type basket with scarlet hearts that dance around the shops and our screens. a big blue bow and her innocent message: ‘Happy muffin It’s just when those expectations meet reality (let’s say munching’. He had to slink back to his desk to hoots a card from One Stop which has googly eyes on of barely concealed mirth from colleagues. it), that BAM, it’s relationship napalm. Now, I’m long enough in the incisors to Oh, AM was romantic in the beginning. “The teenage realise Valentine’s Day has become less On our first Valentine’s Day he scaled the romantic in about true love and more about ways to walls of my student house like a Milk make you buy stuff. I totally get that the Tray Man (Google it, millennials). I was me has her dozen red roses you buy on the 13th and happily typing up my dissertation when expectations the 15th are twice the price on the 14th. suddenly 16st of breathless, dishevelled raised But if AM doesn’t get them then, he’s and, I suspect, slightly inebriated student sky-high” never going to buy them. My friend who tumbled in through the window. He became stopped her boyfriend buying comically entangled in my Laura overpriced blooms, saying she’d Ashley curtains à la Paddington have them on an ‘unvalentine’s day’, Bear. Once unravelled, it became is still waiting, 12 years later. clear his leg was bleeding from I can see that the daily tokens of an injury sustained on the ascent affection are more important than (leaving smears of blood on the wall artisan chocolates, yellow diamonds that led to our eventual loss of or heart-sprinkled cashmere (though deposit) and that the chocolates they’d be nice). And that braving the were, well, squished. Still, romantic. undergrowth in the dark to recapture Then there were the needy years, a lost guinea pig is more precious. where I deemed a conspicuous So, in return, AM, I want to send display of devotion validation of you a heartfelt message on this AM’s love. Once, Valentine’s Day special day… fell on a Wednesday, the same day Happy Valentine’s Join the conversation as rugby training. He booked a fancy @RosieGreenBQ Day. Kind restaurant (score), so I assumed he’d @Redmagdaily regards, Green. forgone practice. Nope. We were the
MARCH 2017 REDONLINE.CO.UK 57
GUEST SPEAKER CHELSEA HANDLER
Women are your allies, not rivals Feeling jealous of other women can be unavoidable. But with practice, we can learn to support each other, says Chelsea Handler One thing I’ve learnt is if you can find the courage to express feelings of jealousy, they’ll often dissolve. Say, through the good, bad and the rompers. These relationships “Emily, I’m so happy for you but I’m feeling crappy about are even more important to me as a woman in an industry myself.” If you’re able to be vulnerable around women where qualities like being assertive and outspoken are they’ll become your support system. In fact, when I started praised in men, but when women exhibit those same my new show I got off to a rocky start. And the people traits they are called a bitch, difficult, or too ambitious. who gave me the most strength? The women in my life. I, at certain times, have been all three of those. It’s It’s not just my closest friends, either. There are women double standards like this that make it necessary for I hardly knew at all who came out of the woodwork to us women to band together, stand up support me. Sarah Silverman is an for one another, and call out bullshit. example of that; the first time I met Most importantly, we need to reject her she came up to me and was like, the impulse to tear down other “OMG, I watch your show every women when we feel jealous. night, how are we not friends?” And Women have a tendency to I said, “Oh, I assumed you didn’t compete about everything – like me.” She replied, “Why would when they’re getting married, you assume that? You’re a woman how many children they’re in comedy, I watch everything you having. And while it’s okay to do.” She opened my eyes and made have those feelings – most of us me realise other women are your do – it’s not okay to act on them. allies, not rivals. Today, whenever I was a comic the first time it women are launching new movies happened to me. I hadn’t become or projects, I always reach out to “It’s necessary successful yet and one of my friends them, even if I’ve only met them for us women to (who I had told to get into comedy) once on my show, just to let them band together, had signed with a big agent at a know that there’s support out there. showcase. And I didn’t. When she called What I’ve learnt is that, ultimately, stand up for to tell me the news I was so jealous. it’s about self-worth. I want to be the one another” woman who is happy being myself, not I thought, ‘How the hell did this happen? I was the one who got her in.’ I talked to my the one worrying who is skinnier or prettier sister and she said, “No one has the exact same or more successful. If you can’t find that inner thing – you all offer something different. I understand you confidence, you need to do the work and look harder feel jealous, but don’t act on it. Be happy for her. There until you discover it. Only then can you be a better will be something else that will come along that will be friend and girlfriend to everyone in your life. right for you that wouldn’t have been right for her.” Having successful, motivated women in your life is also She made me see there’s room for everybody, which a privilege; they add layers to your life, they steady you is something I’ve had to remember throughout my when you wobble, lift you when you fall. To lose that career. You see people breaking through and you worry privilege to jealousy? What a waste that would be. Instead, they’re stealing your thunder. Then you think, ‘Wait, let’s remember that in order to have women Join the conversation any time I’m saying something negative about another as good friends, you have to be one. @RedMagDaily Chelsea Season 2 launches on Netflix woman that’s a reflection of me.’ It’s our job to be aware @Chelseahandler in April, with new episodes weekly of those feelings, then to practise not acting on them.
58 REDONLINE.CO.UK MARCH 2017
PHOTOGRAPHS REX FEATURES, GETTY IMAGES
I PRIDE MYSELF ON THE RELATIONSHIPS I HAVE WITH OTHER WOMEN, and we support each other
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MARCH 2017 REDONLINE.CO.UK 59
Sarah Jessica:
ALWAYS
& FOREVER FEW ACTRESSES CARVE A PERMANENT PLACE IN OUR HEARTS, BUT SARAH JESSICA PARKER IS ONE OF THEM. FROM SEX AND THE CITY TO DIVORCE, SHE CAN DO NO WRONG, SAYS ANNABEL MEGGESON
S
arah Jessica Parker is trying to resist sending an email. It’s a reminder to her husband, Matthew Broderick, to make sure a school form has been signed and returned, and that their son James Wilkie needs to clear out his backpack tomorrow, as he does every Wednesday. “There’s a file under his desk and all his papers from the week – whether it’s Latin or history – have to go in.” Despite being three and a half thousand miles away from her Manhattan home (Parker is in London for the launch of her new unisex perfume Stash SJP. “Now I can say I’ve made a fragrance for humans!” she says of the
60 REDONLINE.CO.UK MARCH 2017
black pepper- and patchouli-laced perfume, which I happen to think is her best to date), she’s struggling to loosen her grip on the details of daily life chez Parker-Broderick. “I do a lot, because I’m controlling,” she says, when I ask if she and Broderick share domestic duties. “I’m a person who is fastidious and exacting, and so I do a huge amount. What is surprising is how much [my husband] can do and does in my absence. Everybody gets where they need to be. But still, he’s not going to put everything away at night. When I come home, I can see the path.” Ah, yes, the notorious man trail. In our house we have ‘Annabel clean’ and ‘Jason clean’, I tell her. “Oh, that’s »
RED WOMAN
“I’m a person who’s fastidious and exacting” – Sarah Jessica Parker on her home life
MARCH 2017 REDONLINE.CO.UK 61
A MARRIAGE is not baked. There is no period at the end of the sentence. There is so much GOOD that comes from it
so great! I’m going to use that from now on. Is it SJ clean or Matthew clean?!” In the end, she doesn’t send the email. “They really must do it their way,” she concedes. But which working mother doesn’t understand the conflict between wanting a man to share in the duties, then immediately jumping in to make sure it’s done a certain way? Having been with Broderick for 25 years, and with three children – James Wilkie, 14, and the twins Tabitha and Marion (known as Loretta) who will be eight this summer – Parker is no stranger to the complexities of long-term relationships. It was her idea to do a show addressing them. HBO’s wonderful Divorce, created by Sharon Horgan, finished airing on Sky Atlantic in the UK before Christmas (if you missed it, that’s this month’s box-set sorted).
62 REDONLINE.CO.UK MARCH 2017
“The study of the landscape of relationships is endlessly interesting,” she says. “A marriage is not baked, especially when you include children. There is no period at the end of the sentence; it’s just a run-on sentence. And there is so much good that comes from it and there’s so much complexity and people survive it and they don’t; and they contemplate affairs and they don’t have them; they have affairs and it doesn’t hurt the marriage; they contemplate divorce and they survive, or a divorce blows up a family to the degree it feels almost irreparable.” In the case of Divorce, the couple do separate, but it’s still “millions of people’s story. Even if it’s not exactly yours, you know someone who’s going through it.” Parker cites American writer John Cheever as an
RED WOMAN influence. Known as the Chekhov of suburbia, he wrote short stories that perfectly capture the dullness and disappointments of places like Westchester, a kind of Surrey of New York, where Divorce is set. The show is like the flipside to Sex And The City, the series that defined a generation and made thousands of women fall in love with Parker’s iconic Carrie. Divorce is world-weary rather than optimistic, though it contains humour and female friendship and fabulous clothes, all of which I suspect Parker has identified as necessary agents of joy for anyone surfing the highs and lows of love and life post 40. If Parker had the idea for a show about “a broken relationship” because she wanted to explore the problems of adult partnership, the process has come full circle. “I learned something really important, which is be smart enough to recognise that the things that annoy you about a long-term partner don’t actually matter. Like anything that annoys me about Matthew – and trust me, there is a laundry list twice as long about things I do that annoy him, I’m sure of it – fundamentally it doesn’t matter. So if you’re still talking about the minutiae that annoys you, then the stuff that really matters must still be in place.” WE AGREE HOWEVER MUCH YOUR PARTNER DRIVES YOU MAD, THERE ARE MOMENTS WHEN YOU REALISE HOW WELL-SUITED YOU BOTH ARE, after all. “Generally
speaking, you have to push men to have [meaningful] conversations, but then there are those men who want to talk too much and I’m like, ‘Ooh, that’s weird!’ Or much as you want your partner to be more loving, I’ll be at the school gates and some guy is always rubbing his wife’s back and I’m like, ‘Eurgh’. I don’t know why that bothers me!” Still, I don’t think it’s any coincidence that in Divorce, it’s Parker’s character Frances who’s in the driving seat. (She’s the main breadwinner; she’s the one who has the affair; she’s the one who asks for a divorce.) I have a hunch that some of this dynamic plays out in the Parker-Broderick household, too,
where Parker doesn’t just manage the domestic affairs, but is a breadwinner and working parent par excellence. At 51, her career is on an enviable roll. Besides the fragrance, Parker has projects as varied as a standalone SJP store in Washington, DC (stocking her range of shoes and little black dresses), to working on a musical about a woman who’s waiting to hear if a recent diagnosis could spell something very serious. She’s on the board of New York City Ballet, helping to raise $10m over the past five years, and is a consummate philanthropist who’s often seen sporting a T-shirt in support of a global or political cause. There’s also the business side of her movie/TV career – the producer credits on many of the projects she has worked on since (and including) SATC. Is it important to have that extra control? “I love producing because I love the collaboration with incredibly gifted people and seeing the process through from beginning to end. It’s about the part of me that’s transparent, that part of me that loves working creatively and fighting till the end for the piece as a whole.” Despite her subsequent achievements, Parker is the first to acknowledge the importance of Carrie as the enduring character who won so many hearts and a primary reason we’re all so invested in SJP. (She even named a shoe after her.) “I don’t mind talking about it at all,” she says, when I can’t help but bring up my beloved SATC. And while, in the past she has said she didn’t identify with Carrie because they were at such different places in their lives (Parker was married and having a baby at the time her character was running round Manhattan from one romantic liaison to another), CLOCKWISE, there are striking similarities. FROM ABOVE: Carrie Bradshaw is smart, Parker with Broderick and son James Wilkie; engaging, stylish, selfwith twins Tabitha and deprecating and kind. Parker ditto. As a journalist Carrie Marion; in Divorce was inherently curious; likewise I can tell Parker is hugely interested in other people and what’s going on around her. She asks me as many questions as I do her and when I express concern about the clock ticking on our chat, she requests an extra 12 minutes, so she can carry on asking. Her ears really prick up when she finds out I have four kids, including triplets. “You have triplets?” “Yes, but you have twins...” “I know, but…” It doesn’t seem to matter how many kids, how hard we work, how »
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RED WOMAN I’m really trying to make is if someone as amazing as Parker suffers self-doubt, then there’s hope for us all.) Then there’s Parker’s quintessential New Yorkness. “I love all the possibilities,” she says of the city that seems to run through her veins and firmly differentiates her from her Hollywood counterparts. Though she always has paparazzi outside her West Village home (towards whom she is notoriously patient). “There are so many people who are cogs in the great wheel of this city that a less bright light is shone on our lives. If I can get a few yards from my front door, I can get lost in a crowd.” And while she’s less keen on this exposure for her kids, “I tell them, there are children with far worse problems than theirs.”
On technology, Parker admits: “I’m not easy with it and I’m unclear of my own boundaries” stylishly we’re navigating our lives (Parker, by the way, gets up at 5am to get on top of emails: “In the mornings, I seem to finish things more”), women still seem to believe that someone else is doing it better, and Parker is not exempt from this particular vulnerability. The difference is she totally owns her imperfections. The word ‘authentic’ is overused in profiles, as if the reader needs to feel vindicated by discovering the person is a little more like them than they seemed, but in Parker’s case, it’s axiomatic. Consider how open she was about her twins being born via surrogate; many people in the public eye go to great lengths to conceal secondary infertility for fear of undermining their perfect image. Parker’s self-image is healthy and grounded, she doesn’t require the protection of a one-dimensional façade. Instead, she’s invested in understanding how she and the world works and how she can do her best by what she learns. (I suppose the point
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recent emergence on social media. And it turns out she’s as conflicted as I am about the whole thing. “I don’t know what to do… [James Wilkie] has a phone for travelling to school, even though I travelled to school forever [without a phone], but we held off longer than most parents.” I remark it seems obvious that smartphones don’t benefit children. No mother ever said, “Little George is doing so well since I got him that iPhone. He’s grade-A all the way now.” “I know, but also Little George might get hurt,” replies Parker. “He might end up saying something that might not be kind and would hurt someone else. Maybe Little George will say something that he isn’t inclined to say, but he learns the language quickly and, like with other things, wants to be like his peers.” As for her own relationship with technology: “I’m not easy with it and I’m unclear of my own boundaries. I’m unclear of how much I want to engage and how to have it not be a personal experience and how to have conversations that I think are productive with people when they’re feeling anxious or angry, or they’re wanting to say really unfriendly things.” Her platform of choice is Instagram and she deploys it with relish, using it really for business, but inadvertently showcasing her personality and view of the world at large. Like her, the account is celebratory, quirky and open-hearted. Sure, she wants to show you the pretty bits, but it’s not in the least bit self-conscious – take a look at her grid and you’ll see it’s wonderfully spontaneous and unpolished; zoom in and there’s humour, curiosity, style and a quiet appreciation of herself and what she has achieved. It’s a lesson in mastering social media – and life. We loved Carrie and it’s with very good reason we love Sarah Jessica Parker, too. STASH SJP by Sarah Jessica Parker (from £32 for 30ml) is For Annabel’s guide to stealing SJP’s style, visit available at Superdrug, Boots REDONLINE.CO.UK and Debenhams
PHOTOGRAPHS SIMON UPTON/TRUNK ARCHIVE, EYEVINE, GETTY IMAGES
TALK TURNS TO KIDS AND THE INTERNET – SJP IS WELL VERSED IN THIS, with her son James Wilkie’s
Make this the year you
SUPERCHARGE YOUR CAREER Reinvent, reinvigorate and reboot your career with these expert tips and tricks Words CYAN TURAN Photograph LUKE J ALBERT
COMPANIES ARE WAKING UP TO THE UNTAPPED POTENTIAL OF WOMEN WHO WANT TO RETURN TO WORK: AND IT'S ABOUT TIME
“Women are the largest untapped reservoir of talent in the world,” Hillary Clinton once said. In 2017, her words still ring true – it’s depressing to see a gender gap at a senior level of many large companies, especially since so many talented women want to return to work after career breaks. But it’s not all doom and gloom – Dominie Moss, founder of The Return Hub, is on a mission to turn the tide. After spotting that many big companies want to plug the gender gap at mid and senior levels, she decided to do something about it. “Most of the time they don’t know where to look for female employees with talent, experience, and a desire to return to work,” she explains. With 15 years of headhunting experience, Moss knows those women are out there, and the numbers back her up: PwC found that 427,000 female professionals currently on a career
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break are likely to return to work in the future. Addressing this situation could increase female earnings by £1.1bn, and the increased spending power could mean gains of £1.7bn for the UK economy. That’s why she launched The Return Hub, a search firm connecting companies with women in financial services who want to return to work. “There is a huge, untapped resource of skilled women who have left their careers, often to raise families, and now want to return to the workforce,” says Moss. “These ‘returners’ bring the benefit of fresh skills and perspective. Businesses would reap the rewards if they spent more time looking into this talent pool.” Julianne Miles, co-founder of Women Returners, who enable women to get back into work with a team of coaches and a ‘returner’ network, agrees. “The UK is leading the way when it comes to helping
women re-enter the workplace,” she says. “There were three programmes in 2014, nine in 2015, and 23 in 2016.” But, Miles also stresses that women “don’t have to join a scheme; the more women that put themselves out there, the more organisations will be receptive to returners”. So how can women join the returner revolution? “Your network of former colleagues will be invaluable,” Miles points out. And Moss recommends updating your CV (“Charity work, informal consulting for friends’ businesses, organising school events all show you’re a go-getter”) and getting up to speed on your industry (“Read blogs and relevant publications, so you can talk confidently about your sector”). And finally? “Don’t apologise for taking time out. You’ve acquired skills and maturity outside the office. They are gold dust for employers.” Thereturnhub.com; Womenreturners.com
STAPLER; PEN, BOTH TOM DIXON AT JOHN LEWIS
THE 'RETURNER' REVOLUTION
WORK CAREER SECRETS... ... FROM SUCCESSFUL WOMEN WE LOVE
Ava DuVernay, film director and screenwriter “I always say the same thing – work without permission. So many of us work from a permission-based place and don’t even know it. We’re waiting for someone to say it’s okay, for someone to give us a green light, give us money, shepherd us through. Some people get lucky, but most of us have to do it for ourselves, and the sooner you realise that, the sooner you step out and begin. Just begin and you will find your momentum. It’ll be messy and hard, but you’re doing something and you’re on your way.”
Samantha Power, United States ambassador, United Nations “My advice would be not to decide on some title and try to script your path toward it, but to develop your interests, dig into them – go deep instead of wide. Learn something about something.”
Christine Lagarde, managing director, International Monetary Fund “Failure is okay. This is not necessarily accepted in all societies or all civilisations. But success does not come easily and should not be taken for granted. It is very much about hard work, resilience, determination – it’s also about teamwork. Helping others, being helped, operating with others on your team is critically important.”
Tina Brown, journalist “It’s important to lead by example. If I’m not willing to stay up all night to make something perfect, why should anyone who works for me? Yes, I push people, but I’ve found many who didn’t realise how good they are until they’re asked to go that extra mile. That extra effort is the bit that can be magic.”
Helena Morrissey, founder, Thirty Per Cent Club “I believe you can create your own opportunities by asking for help when you don’t have the answers. There are different ways of achieving and learning, and playing to your strengths, but asking for advice and making sure you don’t feel on your own is important.”
Jude Kelly, artistic director, Southbank Centre “When you’re a leader, being a good storyteller is helpful, because you can describe future ideas in a way that will excite people. You have to imagine the place you’re aiming for and work backwards in order to chart the path. You can’t just fling an idea forward.”
Vanessa Friedman, fashion director, New York Times “My mother gave me an important piece of advice – you can have it all, just not always at the same time. As a woman balancing family and work, that’s true. I feel strongly about professional women being upfront about the roles they play in their lives. So I’ll say to employers, ‘I have to go to my kid’s graduation,’ or, ‘I can’t come in, my son is sick.’ Getting these issues out there is also key for men. It is our responsibility to acknowledge the challenges everyone faces so they are part of the conversation.” Extracted from The Female Lead: Women Who Shape Our World by Edwina Dunn (Ebury Press, £30). The campaign is donating copies of the book plus teaching materials, to schools. To nominate a school to receive a copy, visit Thefemalelead. com/order-the-book
IT'S TIME TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE GENDER PAY GAP WITH NEW GENDER PAY GAP RULES COMING INTO FORCE NEXT MONTH, FINANCE GURU MERRYN SOMERSET WEBB TELLS YOU EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE CHANGES
What exactly is this new regulation? “The current overall gap for full-time and part-time workers is 18%. Under new laws, employers of 250-plus people must calculate their gender pay gap from April 2017 and publish the details by April 2018.” What does this mean? “Firms will publish a mean and median number of what their male and female employees earn. But those with 250-plus employees will also need to show the number of women and men in different salary quartiles and to show data on bonuses and base salaries separately, explaining large gaps and what remedial action they might take.” What should I do if I’m not happy? “Make an appointment with HR and discuss it. There’s plenty of evidence to suggest not speaking to bosses firmly and directly about pay is one of the reasons for the gap in the first place.” How will the new regulation affect women across society? “It may not immediately. Women tend to work in lower-paid areas... the existence of the gap doesn’t always suggest that women are paid less for the same work as men so much as they often do different work to men. In the longer term, the embarrassment of producing these numbers will force firms to focus on filling highly paid positions with women, and persuade women to move into better-paying areas of work.” »
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WORK NEW BOOK REST EXPLAINS THAT DOWNTIME IS AN ESSENTIAL INGREDIENT OF GOOD WORK. HERE’S WHY YOU SHOULD IMPLEMENT THE PHILOSOPHY INTO YOUR LIFE
Rest your brain When we let our minds wander, our brains are almost as active as when we’re concentrating hard on a problem. The ‘resting’ brain consolidates memories, makes sense of the past, and searches for solutions. Rest is scientifically proven to help people overcome exhaustion and stimulate and sustain creativity – making you a better worker. Unleash your unconcious mind This happens during active rest and is key for creativity. Walk (Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote musical Hamilton’s lyrics during morning walks), nap (they were one of Winston Churchill’s ‘inflexible rules’ and improve memory), stop (it sounds counterintuitive, but cease working when you know what’s going to happen next, because it’ll be easier to start the next day), and sleep
(it’s not the passive phase we experience it to be, you’ll find it easier to focus, make good judgements, plus stave off mental health problems).
Detach from work Although mounting to-do lists and overflowing inboxes make leaving the office seem impossible, not holidaying risks burnout. Recover from challenging jobs and replenish your energy and enthusiasm by developing ways to sustain creativity over the longer term. Recover, engage in ‘deep play’ – hobbies that are meaningful and mentally absorbing – and take sabbaticals to reanimate your creative working life. Explore new interests, make breakthroughs and stay curious. Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang (Penguin Life, £12.99)
Are emails ruining your life?
HERE ARE FOUR WAYS TO REVOLUTIONISE YOUR INBOX
Know your audience Stick to a few lines and use simple language, highlighting any action points and mirroring the recipient’s tone. Start with something positive to stop the recipient’s brain launching into defensive mode.
issue it presents, but start with warmth, tell the other person about something you are committed to (a meeting, a goal), then explain that this means you need to decline the person’s proposition, and end with warmth. Don’t say ‘I’m sorry’.
Don’t multi-task Whenever we flit from task to email to task, we waste time. Create filters so any emails where you’re merely cc’d automatically go into a separate folder. Also, follow the ‘OHIO’ principle – Only Handle It Once. If you revisit a message three times before replying, you’re tripling the time spent on it.
Less is more One email can spawn three, five or 10 more if sent to multiple recipients. Reduce the number you receive by being clear about what you want people to do, not forcing them to chase you by replying promptly. Make concrete decisions about times, locations, and deadlines. If you get mail from strangers, keep a few stock responses on standby which you can paste and send quickly. Extracted from How To Have A Good Day: Think Bigger, Feel Better And Transform Your Working Life by Caroline Webb (Pan Macmillan, £14.99)
Follow the 24-hour rule Don’t sit on emails; send a reply in 24 hours. If necessary, deploy a positive no. We leave email unanswered often because we don’t want to deal with the
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Your new career glossary THE WORK BUZZWORDS TO KNOW IN 2017
Transparency April 2017 will see employers of more than 250 people forced to collect details of their gender pay gap to publish next year, so transparency is the way forward. Mono-tasking Research from Stanford University espousing the virtues of focusing on one task at a time (as opposed to multitasking) has been gaining ground. It’s your 2017 answer to choice fatigue.
“April 2017 will see employers forced to collect details of their gender pay gap”
Neo-generalist Being good at lots of things rather than specialising in a specific area. In a tough jobs market, it’s better to have a broad skills set. Workplace No, not your actual office. Workplace is Facebook’s competitor to Slack, the cloudbased team collaboration tool which had commentators hailing the death of email. Expect these programmes to become commonplace this year.
ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHS GETTY IMAGES. MERRYN SOMERSET WEBB IS THE EDITOR OF MONEYWEEK; MONEYWEEK.COM
THE UPSIDE OF DOWNTIME
NEW YEAR, NEW TECH CAREER…
in association with
Want to make the move into the technology sector but not sure where to start? Two women at Sky tell us how they took the leap
PHOTOGRAPH GETTY IMAGES
EMMA HORTON, 27, ASSOCIATE SOFTWARE DEVELOPER
When I graduated in 2010 with a film and drama degree, I never imagined I’d end up working in technology. In 2012, I moved to London, seeking a job in media production, and joined Sky as a media researcher – preparing images of Sky’s programmes to send to journalists. I was thrilled. After two years, Sky decided to create an ‘asset management system’, so users could download their own pictures. I was asked to advise on what tools the system should have. The buzz of experiencing something new was infectious and I became curious, asking questions about how the new system worked. A career in technology had never occurred to me, but after the system launched in 2015 I missed the technical side of things. By chance, I stumbled across an advert for Sky’s ‘Get Into Tech’ scheme, a free training course open to internal and external women with little or no tech background. That moment changed my life. I was accepted, and every Thursday evening for 14 weeks, 12 of us on the course would focus on software and coding. It was hard work, but the rush of solving problems became addictive. When the course finished, I’d put so much of myself into it that I couldn’t let my work go to waste. Course graduates were invited to apply for a position in technology as part of Sky’s software academy, so I jumped at the chance. The application process involved completing a three-day test. When I cracked it, I felt euphoric! After an assessment day, I was offered a place in October 2016. Now I’m a full-time trainee developer on the academy’s five-month programme, after which I’ll be given a job in a real team. Before Get Into Tech, I’d never thought about the people behind my favourite websites, but there are so many jobs in technology. It’s a career for life. I also feel empowered to
be part of a new generation of female developers entering the industry. Changing careers has been overwhelming at times, but I still pinch myself when I think about the journey I’ve been on. REINU KANDA, 30, SCRUM MASTER (TEAM MANAGER)
I was made redundant from my job securing loans at a bank during the 2008 recession. I needed another role – fast – so got a job as a sales agent in Sky’s call centre. I loved Sky, but wanted to work on larger projects. My manager encouraged me to apply for a secondment vacancy, equipping sales agents with iPads. I got the position and gained insight into technology. When the secondment finished, I returned to the call centre but I was passionate about developing my career in tech. Then, in 2013, a technology manager offered me a job. I thought, ‘Why not?’ I’d worked on the iPad project from start to finish, but the new role was in ‘agile’ technology. Despite my inexperience, I knew I had to go for it. As a scrum master, I manage a team of developers and testers who plan, build and test parts of products before submitting them to production. At first, I felt like an imposter because I didn’t understand the jargon. But when we began to deliver projects quickly, and my understanding of technical terms grew, I felt a real sense of satisfaction. Now, I’m the only woman managing a team of 17 men. At the start it was more intimidating because I knew so much less, but the team could see I wanted to learn, and do well. If they said things I didn’t understand, I’d make a note and research it. Slowly but surely, I built credibility, and now I can’t imagine working anywhere else. You don’t need a tech background to pursue a career in the industry. Women shouldn’t be intimidated: jump in – you’ll soon learn to swim.
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THE FIRST CRUSH IS THE DEEPEST
Lust, longing, daydreams about what could have been... four writers remember the teenage celebrity crushes that left an imprint on them forever
ALAIN DE BOTTON “I knew both that she should be my girlfriend, and also that she never would be”
Alain de Botton, now; and aged 15, right was 15 years old and went to FROM TOP: Charlotte the cinema to see a French film Gainsbourg in 2001; and called L’Effrontée, starring the in L’Effrontée, below French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg, who was 14 at the vulnerability and strength with time. I fell in love across an hour particular grace. One sensed both and a half. I was beguiled by her that she’d be good at climbing trees, intelligence, tomboy beauty, and and going on a mountain climbing by what I perceived to be expedition, and also that her sensitivity, modesty she’d be pretty adept at and mixture “To crush well reading books, talking of practicality is to realise the about movies and – and idealism. where necessary lovely PERSON – crying (tears are The key factor we sketch in in a crush is almost an underestimated always that we source of attraction). our HEADS is admire something in I went through our creation” several weeks of intense the other that we think is missing in ourselves. pain around the thought Gainsbourg seemed to me to of Charlotte Gainsbourg – negotiate the tension between chiefly because I knew both that
I
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EXPERIENCE she should be my girlfriend, and also that she never would be. I was freed from the agony by my very wise aunt who told me that human nature isn’t so cruel: she creates multiple examples of the same type, and that rather than idly pining for Ms Gainsbourg long into the summer holidays, I should “find someone like her, but not her”. This was very releasing – and set me free to pursue other intelligent, tomboyishly beautiful, sensitive, modest, practical and idealistic girls – a pursuit that eventually ended, decades later, with me proposing to my now-wife, who (strangely enough) happens to be called Charlotte. MAYBE THE WAY TO GET OVER A CRUSH IS NOT TO TELL OURSELVES THAT WE NEVER LIKED A PERSON. It is to get very
specific about what the attraction was based on – and then come to see that the qualities we admired in them must exist in other people. So with Gainsbourg, I realised that her elegance, her sensitivity and her melancholic air were going to exist in people other than her – thank goodness, given that she lived in another country and was a celebrity. I realised it wasn’t the fact she was a film star that I liked Gainsbourg. In fact, when I later saw her in a celebrity magazine, picking up an award for a film, she seemed to have lost a lot of the charm she had when she was just playing a girl next door in the movie (a movie that, paradoxically, got her to be famous enough to cease being any sort of girl next door). To crush well is to realise the lovely person we sketch in our heads is our creation: a creation that says more about us than about them. But what it says about us is important. The crush gives us access to our own ideals. We may not be getting to know another person properly, but we are growing our insight into who we really are. The Course Of Love by Alain de Botton (Penguin Books, £8.99)
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP, FAR LEFT: Sarah, aged 13; Jordan Knight in 1989; Sarah with Jordan in 2003
SARAH TOMCZAK “A part of my heart would always be his”
H
outside their hotel for the day in my school uniform (I didn’t get a glimpse, but I still remember the thrill of it). I wrote stories about becoming a journalist and going on tour with the band. Jordan would fall in love with me, and we’d spoon in his top bunk on the tour bus. I filled two A4 binders. Jordan Knight was my happy place.
uge brown eyes. Falsetto voice. Synchronised dance moves. A braided rat’s tail trailing down his back. These are just some of the reasons that, aged 13, I gave my 12 YEARS LATER I WAS WORKING heart to Jordan Knight, lead singer AT A CELEBRITY MAGAZINE IN of American boy band New Kids NEW YORK and got the chance to On The Block. Another was the fly to Miami and interview separation of my parents Jordan. He was making a few months before. “I wrote a comeback (one of What do you do when stories about many). The gravitas your world is falling going on TOUR of it wasn’t lost on apart around you? with the band. me – yes, that Lose yourself in teenage yearning had a heady obsession Jordan would almost disappeared. with a 19-year-old, fall in LOVE But a part of my heart who dances a bit like with me” would always be his. As Michael Jackson and I stepped into that gated wears leather jackets and Miami mansion (where a make-up sings about “loving you (forever)”. artist was powdering his nose), my He was the sweet, soulful one. God, body fizzed with excitement. And he was handsome. And so I spent then it quickly dissolved. my allowance on New Kids On The Can anyone ever live up to Block albums, and on Smash Hits a 13-year-old’s fantasy? He was and Top Of The Pops magazine, less chiselled than he’d been, which promised giant posters every softer, more ordinary. Compared to month. I saved up to see Jordan in the charming, opinionated, whipconcert (four times!). Two years smart New Yorkers I was hanging later, I bunked off school and took out with, he was just very normal. the train to London, when the band I guess I’d hoped for star power and » were touring, just so I could stand
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about buying blue carpets for their new house in Essex. I loved the Pet Shop Boys, too, but their straight faces left me with nothing to dive into. And I loved Jazzie B from Soul II Soul, and would sit rewinding my VHS FROM TOP: recording of The Chart Sophie as Show until I’d written a teenager; Lenny down every word of Henry in 1981; on Back To Life. But he stage in 1989 just seemed to stand phrases and made-up words that are there. I didn’t fancy embedded in my memory 20 years on. him. I didn’t fancy any male pop stars – I fancied Lenny Henry. AND THEN THERE WAS HIS If you weren’t watching telly in the MARRIAGE TO DAWN FRENCH, late ’80s and early ’90s, you might which didn’t upset me at all, as they just think of Lenny Henry as some were the Brad and Angelina of my nice establishment comedian who’s childhood (they even adopted their been around forever. You might forget daughter). It delighted me – here was the days when he was a massive a man who could have anyone, and breath of fresh air, playing characters he’d chosen this hilarious, chubby like Delbert Wilkins, who ran a pirate white woman who reminded me radio station out of the back room of a bit of, well, me. Some years later, a Brixton restaurant. You have to when their marriage was floundering, understand this was a period when a newspaper ran a kiss-and-tell with coolness had become deadpan. Or a woman who’d been to his stand-up if something was lively, it was ugly. gig and ended up in a hotel room with Hideously ugly, like Jasper Carrott, him. I raced to the end of the piece to or The Young Ones, who always discover the sexual secrets – but she seemed to be unwashed and spitting. had apparently sat on the bed and then So Lenny Henry was utterly gone home. It’s not that I wanted gorgeous in comparison, and not only s a teenager, I didn’t have him to cheat on his wife – far from it. that, he had this massive energy. posters of people I fancied I was desperate to know something There was this jolt of electricity that on my walls. I would have about the sexual hinterland of my ran through his whole body, like found it embarrassing for beloved Lenny. He had occupied such a shot going from one hand and up my parents to see an unusual place in our culture, and through his arms to the that – my fantasies in my brain – he was a shape-shifter, other. It even ran through remained inside my he was feminine and masculine, he his speech: he’d say “He said head. And the sort of was black and white. He was very something smooth in things that people who appeared much in both worlds, both cultures, the deepest of voices, are EMBEDDED a voice that made him and the speed of his comedy was that on the posters in my in my MEMORY joke that Mr Kipling copy of Smash Hits he raced from one to the other so fast weren’t fanciable you could never not be on his side. He cake adverts had to be 20 years on” anyway. I mean, I loved had to please all communities, he was voiced by a black man Bros, and got into paisley a fluid quantity. I would be a nervous – and then it would speed bandanas around the neck as wreck if I met him now. I STILL up into a shriek that was a direct result of their look. But LOVE YOU LENNY HENRY. practically a falsetto. There was so I didn’t fancy them – they seemed Sign up to Sophie Heawood’s weekly much life there. He said that things chiselled and humourless and talked newsletter at Tinyletter.com/TheSophist were “well crucial” and “sponditious”,
charisma, that he’d make me laugh the way those girls did in the You Got It (The Right Stuff) video. But he was a nice guy and we had a perfectly pleasant interview. He showed me around his place (which was completely devoid of personal items and I have a feeling he’d just borrowed for the purpose of our shoot), then stopped at the piano. There, he tinkled the ivories, playing The Stylistics’s hit You Make Me Feel Brand New. I knew this was his favourite song, and decided to tell him so, giving him a hint of my affections. He smiled properly for the first time and asked me to join him on the piano stool. Then he launched into my own personal New Kids medley. I closed my eyes and let the cheesy pop tunes transport me back to my 13-year-old self. If only she could have known about this perfect moment. That all the tears and longing would one day, somehow, have been worth it. And right then, they were.
SOPHIE HEAWOOD
“There was this jolt of electricity that ran through his whole body”
A
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EXPERIENCE
Hadley Freeman, far right, fell for Matthew Broderick’s character Ferris Bueller, in her younger years
HADLEY FREEMAN “I delighted myself with fantasies of our wedding”
PHOTOGRAPHS REX FEATURES, GETTY IMAGES
M
y first crush was not on an actual human. No, at the age of eight I preferred my men fictional (and, if I’m honest, this is not entirely untrue at the age of 38). So my first crush was not the boy who lived across the street, nor a teacher at school – not even someone I knew. It was, instead, Ferris Bueller. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, John Hughes’s 1986 classic, is still, no question, one of my favourite movies: I love its surrealism, its lyricism, its thrilling originality within a seemingly conventional teen-movie framework. But none of those reasons are why I loved it when I was eight. No, what I loved about it was how cool Ferris was. Now, it says quite a lot about me and John Hughes that our idea of ‘cool’ was a teenager who skips school to go to a museum – a museum, for God’s sake – but what
wrote a book about them, for heaven’s sake (such a wannabe Ferris move, that). But I was still the same overly anxious person I always was, just 30 years older – the kind who could only dream of being as blithely relaxed as an (albeit fictional) 18-year-old boy. In 2009 I was living in New York, recovering from a series of rather emotionally trying break-ups and generally keeping myself to myself. But in the evenings, I’d go out to walk my dog around the neighbourhood. It so happened that my dogwalking schedule coincided with that of one of my neighbours, and our terriers became friends. There we “In retrospect, were, my neighbour and me, walking awkwardly I don’t know next to each other every if I wanted to night while our dogs MARRY Ferris happily sniffed each or if I wanted other’s butts. After the fourth night in a row of to BE him” this it got too ridiculous not to acknowledge one another so I decided I had to introduce myself. “Hi, I’m Hadley,” I said. “Matthew,” he replied, although I loved about Ferris was how nothing I knew that already. It was Matthew fazed him. He was the most popular Broderick, Ferris’s real-life alter ego. boy in school, his parents thought he I never told him about my Ferris was perfect and he could do pretty obsession. In fact, I never told him much anything he wanted. To I knew who he was at all. I suspected a studious eight-year-old with loving, he was tired of people gushing at him if perhaps over-protective, parents, about their teenage dreams, so in this represented the absolute pinnacle order not to scare him off I pretended of cool and, for more than a year, to think he was just another guy in I watched that movie every day. I can New York, meaning we talked about still recite the whole movie on my our dogs, the weather and how much own. (Hey, everyone needs a skill.) we liked summer in the city. It was I collected every poster of Ferris the most difficult, but also most I could find and delighted myself with exciting, acting job of my life. fantasies of our wedding, although, in Okay, he didn’t marry me. We retrospect, I don’t know if I wanted to didn’t even become best friends and marry Ferris or if I wanted to be him. skip work to go to a museum. But, for a few months, we did spend our ANYWAY, LIFE MOVED ON AND evenings walking alongside one SO DID I, SORT OF. I stopped another picking up our dogs’ poo. watching Ferris Bueller’s Day Off And you know what? In a funny every day, but I was still totally way it was like a dream come true. Life Moves Pretty Fast by Hadley obsessed with it, and other movies Freeman (4th Estate, £8.99) from that era, to the point that I even
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BETTER ORGASMS START HERE... Write erotic stories. Take deep breaths. And don’t make climaxing your goal. Does this 21-day programme hold the secrets to better orgasms? Daisy Buchanan puts it to the test
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orgasming from penetrative sex* – but I’d love to have more control over my orgasms, and I’m hoping to learn how to make them more intense. Plus, Pennington believes, “The benefits [of orgasm] are numerous – stress relief from depression and anxiety, and it’s a pain reliever.” So, determined to get out of my head and more in touch with my body, I decide to give her programme a go.
WEEK ONE Daily affirmations, deep breathing and savouring pleasure
None of the exercises in the 21-day programme require a partner and the first week focuses on the mind, ‘selfawareness and affirming your right to pleasure’. I need to commit an hour a day, which seems excessive, but I begin with five deep breaths, ‘setting an intention for the day’. (I’m not totally sure what this means. Do I want more orgasms? Better orgasms?) I end the ritual by saying one of the affirmations aloud: “Today I deserve pleasure. I will give myself pleasure.” I feel a bit silly. But, while I usually shower in the morning, I put pleasure first and soak in the tub with my Le Labo oil, which smells of wood smoke and patchouli, and reminds me of kissing at festivals. The next day there’s more deep breathing, focusing on ‘gratitude’ for how my lungs work. Pennington wants me to ‘eat something delicious, to savour slowly’ with no distractions. I make a brownie last for 20 minutes and
*ACCORDING TO PLANNED PARENTHOOD. PHOTOGRAPH GETTY IMAGES
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y orgasms are currently a bit like crosscountry car journeys. Sometimes I zoom to the destination and wish I’d given myself a bit more time to look out of the window; occasionally the mental traffic is so bad that I feel like giving up the trip altogether. On a good week, my husband and I might have sex four times, but when we’re busy we might go for a month where we don’t manage more than a goodnight cuddle. In one way, our sex life is better than ever because we know each other’s bodies so well, but now we’ve been together for five years, I miss the intensity it had at the beginning. I have to make more of an effort to initiate sex because it doesn’t just happen in the way it used to. Part of me accepts that’s how relationships evolve, but I would love our sex life to be as hot and urgent as it was at the start. That’s why I’m turning to Dr Andrea Pennington, an orgasm expert and ‘sex educator’. Her theory? When we don’t orgasm we miss out on the chance to develop a good relationship with our partner and with ourselves. “The orgasm is an indicator of empowerment, self-acceptance and self-love, as well as an affirmation of a woman’s right to enjoy pleasure…” Pennington writes. In The Orgasm Prescription For Women, she recommends we have three a week, and promises to teach me how to “consistently achieve full-body, mind-blowing, soul-stirring orgasms”. I know I’m lucky to orgasm from clitoral stimulation and intercourse – as many as 80% of women have difficulty
SEX notice the flavours. Unusually, I don’t feel guilty or bloated when I finish. Pennington believes orgasms happen in the brain, so this is about savouring a sensation and noticing the flow of pleasure between body and brain. Later in the week I have to spend 15 minutes reading erotic literature (I pick Anaïs Nin’s Delta Of Venus) and then, as instructed, touch my body without worrying about having an orgasm. I enjoy stroking my neck and the backs of my thighs, but tense up when I touch my stomach. It’s a
“In The Orgasm Prescription For Women, Pennington recommends we have THREE a WEEK” part of my body I feel insecure about and that distracts me. I’m looking at myself with critical eyes instead of thinking about what feels good. Still, that night I sleep deeply. The next morning I feel calmer and excited enough to initiate sex with my husband (a rare thing on a weekday morning). I’m not sure my orgasm is more intense, but I don’t stop smiling all day and my husband doesn’t seem to mind being late for work for a change.
WEEK TWO The Sensual Full Body Touch ritual While I’m now thinking about and initiating sex more, I thought my orgasms might be stronger and longer. I’m worried I’m failing somehow. It doesn’t help that today I have to write about what my life would be like if I were ‘fully embracing my right to self-expression’ and the exercise makes me anxious. I turn a corner on day 12 with the affirmation ‘I know when to take it easy’. The words remind me to relax and focus on being in my body in the moment, not trying to get an A* at the end. One of my single friends recently complained she hasn’t had an orgasm in months, partly because masturbation feels like one more thing ‘to do’. Our talk makes me think about how sex is sold to us as one more thing to achieve, so I decide to put less pressure on myself. That day, the ritual is Sensual Full Body Touch – 15 minutes of reading Delta Of Venus, then as much time as I like to touch my body ‘with no goal of reaching orgasm’. Inspired by the erotic literature, I experiment with pressure: instead of touching my breasts like I’m playing James Bond doing a shower scene, I pinch my nipples hard. I find a
spot right behind my left knee, and as I stroke it my breaths become short and shallow. I start to touch myself between my legs and even though I wasn’t intending to climax, I do. I’ve never been so turned on when I’ve been by myself. I’m shocked. This is the orgasm I wanted. I wonder whether the programme has performed its magic or just basic reverse psychology; perhaps the most freeing route to orgasm is being told you don’t need to have one. Ultimately, Pennington makes masturbation seem just as important as sex with a partner – I’m starting to think she might be right. The next day I tell my husband I want to try not coming, to focus on the way everything else feels. He looks panicked but agrees to try. Every time I come close, he stops and does something else, until I get so turned on that I leap on top of him and climax so loudly I now have to take the stairs every time I see my neighbours in the lift.
WEEK THREE Exploring my erotic fantasies
The programme insists I try writing an erotic story, which would have been daunting two weeks ago, but now I’m inspired to give it a go. I start by writing 500 words about when my 5 WAYS TO BOOST husband and I had a carriage to ourselves YOUR ORG ASMS on the overnight train from Paris to O Start the day by breathing Venice. Pennington talks about the deeply and slowly. Concentrate power of fantasy, so my next story is on the way your whole body a bit wilder – I’m surprised by a stranger feels as your lungs fill up with when I’m touching myself in the park. air. You need to connect with Thanks to her instructions, my sex every part of your body in order to orgasm. drive has rocketed, which is exciting and O Masturbate in front of frustrating – my husband is stunned to a mirror and focus on the find I now want twice as much sex as way your body responds to he does. I think my orgasms are getting being touched. See yourself longer – when I feel them coming I try to in a sensual, sexy way. hold back. And the experience has acted O Try touching yourself while as a relationship MOT: my husband and avoiding orgasm, holding out I aren’t just having more sex, but talking for as long as you can. This more about it and it’s bringing us closer. means you’re not putting The main problem is the programme yourself under pressure, dominates your day. I don’t know how and the sense of delayed most women would manage. Pennington gratification will heighten says “90% of the orgasm happens in your eventual climax. the mind”, but I would have liked more O Imagine yourself as tips about how to explore my body. a superhero or sexy character, and dream up erotic scenarios Still, thanks to Pennington, I’m where you’re allowed to do making time to masturbate and feel anything. Freeing your mind much happier for it. Most importantly? will help you leap over any I’ve realised this programme isn’t just mental blocks that are about orgasms – it’s about making sure coming between you and we value ourselves enough to prioritise your orgasm. them. That’s a lesson worth learning. O Read an erotic book on The Orgasm Prescription For Women by paper, not on screen – it will Andrea Pennington (Make Your Mark help you escape your mind Global, £13.67) and focus fully on your body.
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“I AM A MACHINE. ANY NEGATIVES I WILL MAKE INTO A POSITIVE” From running 27 marathons in as many days to stand-up comedy performed in French, voicing an animated rock-star cat and plans to be an MP, Eddie Izzard’s talents know no bounds. Viv Groskop prepares to be wowed Photographs PAL HANSEN
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knew there would be no point in competing with Eddie Izzard’s shoes – and I was right. His high-heeled boots are amazing. “They’re from somewhere on the high street,” he says, taking them off to look at the label. “All Saints.” His outfit is rock-star unisex: skinny jeans, T-shirt, jacket, all black. He is having a minor appearance-related flap. He is running out of lipstick and can’t remember what shade he’s wearing. MAC Twig, I suggest? He’s not sure. “Is that matte? I had one and I put it in the back of my handbag and now it’s disappeared.” (I feel bad afterwards that I recommended the wrong colour. Twig is way too dark for him. Maybe Brave?) Anyway. He likes to wear what he feels like, and he’s not a “fashion person”, he says. “I just try and work it out. It took me a long time to get »
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“I have this built-in genetic thing of ‘the glass is two-thirds full’,” says Izzard
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George Clooney in Ocean’s Twelve and Thirteen, as well as in television series The Riches, Hannibal and a memorable turn in The Good Wife. At 54, he talks about everything he has done with the energy and childlike glee of someone who has just arrived at freshers’ week. His latest project is Rock Dog, a hilarious and mad animated film about a hound, voiced by Luke Wilson, cast adrift from his community, who attempts to befriend a cat, voiced by Izzard, a rock star who has lost his mojo. (Stay with me here, guys. I watched it with my six-yearold and we loved it.) Izzard plays the role with gusto and with tongue firmly in cheek: it sounds to me like Mick Jagger by way of Captain Sparrow with a hint of Robbie Williams. “There was no one I was channelling,” he insists. “I am just fascinated by rock ’n’ roll bands who broke America in the ’60s and ’70s because that’s what I decided to do as a comedian.”
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e has built his career from street performer to Hollywood star, constantly reinventing himself, challenging himself to get into politics and to perform gigs in languages he doesn’t know. His drive is incredible. When he decided to run marathons, he ended up running 27 marathons in 27 days for Sport Relief. As a kid, he knew he wanted to perform, but had no idea how to make it happen. “At school I couldn’t get parts because I was too small and I didn’t know how to do it. How did you do it? Say lines a look. I’m wearing hats at the loudly? Point at things?” (He acts WOMEN have total moment because I don’t like my hair this out. It is very funny.) “I would do for the role of Edward VII.” He’s clothing RIGHTS. That’s these auditions and I would never get starring opposite Judi Dench in So I started looking at the one area where women anything. Stephen Frears’ forthcoming film, credits at the end of films. It was the are really up there… ’70s so you couldn’t stop the title at Victoria And Abdul, due out in the autumn. So he’s in a baseball cap they had to FIGHT for it the end, you just had to scribble it today. “Any stuff that girls stole from down. ‘Best boy’. What was that? boys, I just steal it back. I have boy Then at the end of The Battle Of mode and girl mode and I go between the two. If Britain, it came up on screen: ‘Filmed entirely on I’m in girl mode, I wear heels. If I’m in boy mode, location and at Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Bucks’. heels don’t work. It’s probably 50-50 between the two.” I thought, ‘That must be a place.’” He went and bought His look is his own equality statement basically. a map from WHSmith, went there and, aged 13, “Women can do this all the time. They can wear makewalked around trying to be noticed. It didn’t work. up or no make-up. Heels or flats. Skirts or trousers. But it gave him a taste for life on set. Women have total clothing rights. That’s one area His life plan hasn’t always moved at the pace he hoped. where women are really up there and doing well – “I was desperate to get somewhere quick. I wanted a TV and they had to fight for it. Even in the ’30s and ’40s series by the age of 25. And at the age of 24 and a half, women wearing trousers was seen as ‘wearing drag’.” I was still street-performing...” The point is, you just Ah, vintage Izzard. Challenging norms since 1962. never, ever give up, he says. “It’s a military thing for Born in south Yemen, his mother a midwife, his father an me. I wanted to be in special forces originally, that accountant with BP, he was raised in Northern Ireland and was my plan. So I’ve kind of done my own version.” Wales, where his mother died of cancer when he was six. It’s rare to meet someone with such inspiring selfHe wanted to be an actor from the age of seven and went belief. “I am a machine. Any negatives I will make into on to be known as the finest stand-up comedian of his a positive. Not being fast-tracked into Footlights [the generation. He has won two Emmys, and acted with Ewan Cambridge theatre club that gave a foot up to Hugh McGregor in Velvet Goldmine, Tom Cruise in Valkyrie and Laurie, Stephen Fry, Rowan Atkinson and many more],
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PORTRAITS PAL HANSEN/CONTOUR BY GETTY IMAGES. ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHS GETTY IMAGES, REX FEATURES
MEN I had to build my entire comedy career up myself. And then when that started taking off, I thought, ‘Right. Let’s build the drama up now.’” He is also relentlessly self-critical. “My initial dramatic work was not good. Now I’m toe-to-toe with Judi Dench and Stephen Frears. There’s a bit in After finishing the documentary [2009’s Believe: his run around The Eddie Izzard Story] where the UK in aid of someone says, ‘Why do you want to be a so-so Sport Relief in actor when you’re such a brilliant comedian?’ I said, 2009; starring in 1998’s Velvet ‘I used to be a so-so comedian.’ Everything I start Goldmine off at, I start off as not good. That’s human. I just keep on working at it. If you took a short-term view, you would think, ‘What is this?!’ All my first marathons “With my sexuality, I don’t do running and hiding. were rubbish. All my first street performing was rubbish. I’m not going to run and hide from the world.” It’s just like grafting on the north face of the Eiger.” He is famously private about his personal life but speaks This involves a certain mindset. “I have this built-in fondly of his father and his brother, Mark, two years his genetic thing of ‘the glass is two-thirds full’. Not even senior, a talented linguist who helps him out with half full. Two-thirds full. I don’t think my way is translating the material for his international shows. When necessarily the right way. But it’s the right way their mother was ill they built a model railway together to for me.” He likens himself to an occupy their time – they donated it to athlete who takes the long way round. Bexhill Museum last year. When Everything I START the “If you see the guy running around asked what has made him happiest in off at, I start off as the inside, he can cut round. I feel life, he says: “Being the first stand-up like I’m running around the outside at the Hollywood Bowl. Selling out NOT GOOD. That’s of the track.” That sounds like the Olympia in Paris and playing in HUMAN. I just keep a lonely place to be, I say. He looks French. Getting to work with my dad on WORKING at it away for a moment and smiles. and my brother.” I mention his mother and he wells up. “It’s painful to think HIS POSITIVITY INFORMS HIS POLITICS. Although about my mum in depth. But I always know that there will even his optimism was slightly dented by recent political be regret that she had to go.” He pauses. “My dad just developments. “I do feel that the xenophobic and racist had his 88th birthday. I saw him yesterday.” elements that came up after Brexit are more prevalent Izzard was never going to have a conventional life now. Permission has been granted.” He is vehemently but he does seem, to all intents and purposes, a family pro-EU – which is unsurprising as he’s working on a new man of sorts. “I don’t want the semi or the company car. show in Spanish. “If half the country goes backwards, I did accounting at university so I could have had all the other half can still go forwards. We have to be part of that. With family... I’m not trying not to do it... It just the EU. Instead we’ve voted for running and hiding. That didn’t seem right to be going round the world and to is not the British way. I’m not going to stop fighting.” have kids while saying ‘We never see you’. But we’ll He calls himself ‘transgender’ and has had abuse for see. If I worked the situation out right, I would want that. “People shout things at me in the street because of children. But, then, I have said that for many years.” being transgender. But also because of politics.” It took When I ask what’s next, the answer is characteristically him a while to work out himself how he felt about ambitious. “I want to make more films,” he begins, “and gender. “The language wasn’t there. When I was called do stand-up in Spanish, Russian, Arabic and Mandarin ‘TV’, everyone thought I was saying, ‘I am a television’. Chinese,” he continues. “Politics might come up in 2020. And I thought the word ‘transvestite’ was ugly and When I say 2020, I mean the next election. I’m waiting to horrible. I decided I would reclaim it. Even in You’ve Got see if I can get a by-election and stand as a Labour MP. Mail, the Tom Hanks movie, one of the characters says, I want to keep pushing forward and being positive, ‘Shall I contact this person?’ The reply comes, ‘They while some of our country are being negative.” could be an axe murderer, a rapist or a transvestite.’ It If anyone can cheer us up, it’s Izzard. As I’m leaving was in that grouping.” He has never made any apologies the room, he calls out to his assistant: For Eddie Izzard’s Best for himself. “The thing about running around the outside “Any news on the lipstick front?” Things In Life, visit Rock Dog will be released in June 2017 of the track is that you don’t doubt yourself,” he adds. REDONLINE.CO.UK
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Edited by CYAN TURAN
A fine ART A new exhibition and book show off David Hockney at the peak of his prismatic powers, says Cyan Turan
“RED POTS IN THE GARDEN” 2000 OIL ON CANVAS 60X76” © DAVID HOCKNEY. PHOTOGRAPH RICHARD SCHMIDT
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avernous canyons, cobalt Californian pools and portraits of people that seem to delve deep into their souls… throughout his six-decade career, David Hockney has turned his masterful hand to virtually every subject imaginable with his trademark verve and vivid use of colour. Now, a new retrospective will examine his métier in all its glory when it opens at Tate Britain this month. The exhibition is – of course – accompanied by a coffee-table book, which showcases over 200 paintings, photographs, multi-screen works and even iPad drawings spanning the entirety of his career, making both a striking read and a brilliant tribute to a true creative talent. » David Hockney, edited by Chris Stephens and Andrew Wilson (Tate Publishing, £40). David Hockney is at Tate Britain, 9th February-29th May; Tate.org.uk
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This month’s MUST-READS Sarra Manning picks the best of February’s fiction – including romance from Jojo Moyes
This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel (Headline Review, £16.99; out 9th February) Rosie and Penn are parents to four rambunctious sons. Their youngest, quietest boy, Claude, declares that when he grows up he wants to be a girl. What follows isn’t an ‘issue’ book but a wonderful, magical, sometimes sad story that explores what makes this family tick and doesn’t attempt to wrap up its complex theme in a neat little bow. Think a kinder Maria Semple, or Donna Tartt with a sense of humour.
Valentine’s Day Read Paris For One And Other Stories by Jojo Moyes (Michael Joseph, £12.99; out 9th February) Until a new novel is forthcoming, Jojo Moyes fans will find lots to cheer about in her first collection of short stories. Honeymoon In Paris features characters from her bestselling novel, The Girl You Left Behind, and in Crocodile Shoes and The Christmas List, unhappy women come into their own in the most satisfying way. But if you want romance, the title story and its hapless heroine Nell, Paris setting and the delightful Fabien, will give it to you in spades.
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The Fatal Tree by Jake Arnott (Sceptre, £16.99; out 23rd February) The Fatal Tree is set in the grimy underworld of 18th-century London known as Romeville and is the fictionalised story of the notorious prostitute and pickpocket, Edgworth Bess – “a more deceitful and lascivious wretch is not known in England”. From her condemned cell in Newgate, she tells her tale of rags to riches, lovers taken and lovers betrayed, in such a vivid voice you can smell the slops and sawdust.
The Doll Funeral by Kate Hamer (Faber & Faber, £12.99; out 16th February) The second novel from Kate Hamer, and like her bestselling debut The Girl In The Red Coat, in The Doll Funeral, she again excels in weaving a story around a girl who’s not quite of this world. Teenager Ruby sees ghosts and death and destruction all around her and when she leaves the abusive Mick to find her real mother, the reader is pulled into Ruby’s dark, haunted world where things are rarely what they seem. A slow-burning beauty of a book. A Gentleman In Moscow by Amor Towles (Hutchinson, £12.99; out 9th February) I adored Amor Towles’s debut Rules Of Civility and loved A Gentleman In Moscow, too. In 1922 Count Alexander Rostov is exiled to an attic room in the Hotel Metropol for being an unrepentant aristocrat. There he has to find his own amusements with the help of some unlikely allies, including the precious, precocious Nina. This is a lovely, meandering story as charming and elegant as the Count himself.
READS
The mystique of MEMOIR
Rampling in Paris in the ’60s; modelling in 1967, below
Charlotte Rampling’s novel approach to writing the story of her life, Who I Am, is as refreshing as it is revealing
PHOTOGRAPHS GETTY IMAGES
Charlotte Rampling’s memoir is a vessel of dialogues, images and memories
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Words CYAN TURAN
he art of writing about oneself, weaving together scenes from the trajectory of life into a tapestry, sounds beautiful. But delving into our innermost thoughts and stringing them into sentences isn’t always easy. That’s particularly true when you’re swinging Sixties icon and actress Charlotte Rampling, and your memoir is a vessel for your family secret. A new, nuanced approach to writing is called for. The book, Qui Je Suis, was published in French in 2015, but the English translation, Who I Am, is around the corner. The book opens with observations of Rampling written in the second person by co-author Christophe Bataille, with Rampling going on to recall her early life in a series of dialogues, images, and memories. The effect is curiously conversational, as if the pair are cautiously inviting the reader in. It feels like an intimate insight, as Bataille notes to Rampling, “You make your gaze so clear-eyed… everything is true in our book.” Yet it’s one which is
clouded with mystique – the reader, a third party in a private dialogue. A ‘celeb memoir’ it is not – Rampling describes it as a “poem” and “a search for the right form. A balance of words and images. And one or two secrets.” Ah, the secrets. Her story hinges on one in particular, surrounding “The words the death of her sister Sarah, have come. aged 23. It’s not for me to spoil, but the episode is evidently After how many shattering. Rampling notes, “I years? They are had to spend a long time in the my return from wilderness before I could shed my first tear, before I could the wilderness” finally become a woman relieved by a suffering that was too tightly contained.” Clearly the book is a sort of catharsis, and she says as much herself: “The words have come. After how many years? They are my return from the wilderness.” The result is a work of art – a moving look through the veil of one of acting’s most timeless talents. Who I Am by Charlotte Rampling (Icon Books, £12.99; out 2nd March)
Three more memoirs out this month
The Wild Other by Clover Stroud (Hodder & Stoughton, £20; out 9th February) Journalist Stroud’s story of finding a place she can call home traverses countries and catastrophes – it’s shocking and sexy, yet tragic and touching, too.
How To Murder Your Life by Cat Marnell (Ebury Press, £14.99; out 2nd February) Caught in a whirlwind of addiction, Marnell spent her twenties partying by night while trying to hold down a job by day, coming close to throwing her life away. An emotionally charged read.
Traveling with Ghosts by Shannon Leone Fowler (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, £14.99; out 23rd February) When her fiancé was killed by a jellyfish in Thailand, Fowler found herself untethered and alone. She goes on a journey to make sense of her loss. »
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Turkish author Elif Shafak uses her books to raise issues affecting minorities. It’s more important than ever before, she tells Cyan Turan What’s your writing process? I write every novel in English, have it translated into Turkish, then re-write it. It’s insane, but I love the commute between languages.
In your books your characters are often minorities or from marginalised communities. Is that important to you? Yes. Since childhood I’ve felt like ‘the other’, an outsider on the inside, in Turkey. As a result I give a voice to the silenced and suppressed in Turkey: Armenians, the LGBT community. If you’re from what I call ‘wobbly geographies’ – Turkey, Egypt – and care what’s happening outside your door, you can’t help but be interested in politics. I ask questions and leave we only readers to answer them.
Your 10th novel, Three Daughters Of Eve, is out this month. What’s it about? There are three girls, all Oxford students: Iranian-British Shirin, who’s critical of all religion; Mona, a practising Muslim; and Peri, who’s Turkish, and has questions. Together they’re the sinner, the “If believer, and the confused. This book engage with focuses on the people who are With the rise of extremism, is that confused and her similar to our more important journey, asking world view, we than ever? questions about Absolutely, people who religion, the don’t learn” believe in democracy, relationship between East diversity and equality have and West, and feminism. to speak louder, work harder, and Who do you most identify with? connect with people better. Women writers are expected to say Do you censor yourself? When their female characters, but I hide in writing, I get immersed in my own male ones. There’s more of me in world. Where I might have censored Professor Azur, who teaches a course myself, words just flow, unrestrained! on God and encourages his students When I hand the book to my editor, to avoid certitude. I’m not religious; I get panic attacks but by then it’s I’m interested in faith and doubt. As too late. I don’t feel fearful when I’m human beings we need both; we need writing, but I wouldn’t believe anyone, them to dance. If we only engage especially from Turkey, who says with people who are similar to our “I’m 100% free”. There is so much world view, we don’t learn.
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oppression on freedom of speech. Turkey is the number-one jailer of journalists, and writers know their words can get them into trouble.
You live in London while your husband is in Istanbul and you’ve called yourself a ‘single mother’. How does that affect your writing? For me, love cannot thrive where there’s no freedom. So much of my energy goes into motherhood and writing. Being a wife falls down the list of priorities. Women writers, especially mothers, juggle, so I carve time for myself to write, day or night. What’s next for you? I’ve just started my 16th book. My life is like a pendulum, it swings one way and I’m sociable. Once a story comes, the pendulum swings back and it becomes my life! I’ve been known to miss good friends’ birthdays because a novel demanded I sit down and write. Writers are difficult lovers, horrible husbands and wives, and constantly fail in relationships. It’s tough, but writing is about the greater good. Three Daughters Of Eve by Elif Shafak (Viking, £14.99)
Dates for your diary… 15TH FEBRUARY-17TH APRIL:
Twelfth Night, The Olivier, National Theatre, London Don’t miss this magical production of Shakespeare’s winsome comedy, starring Tamsin Greig as Malvolia; Nationaltheatre.org.uk. 2ND MARCH: World Book Day
Marking its 20th anniversary, children will dress up as their favourite book characters; Worldbookday.com. 7TH-12TH MARCH: Women of the World, Southbank Centre, London This six-day festival showcases some of the most brilliant female talent – from Elif Shafak to Reni Eddo-Lodge; Southbankcentre.co.uk.
PHOTOGRAPH GETTY IMAGES
“My books give a VOICE to the SILENCED and SUPPRESSED”
INSPIRATION New film Hidden Figures tells the story of Mary Jackson (far right), Katherine Johnson (below) and Dorothy Vaughan (inset, on left)
One giant leap:
THE WOMEN who fought SEXISM AND RACISM to become SPACE SCIENCE PIONEERS
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Johnson’s work (played by Taraji P Henson) put Buzz Aldrin (above) on the moon
he date is 20th February, 1962. Astronaut John Glenn prepares for the most important day of his life. With his crew-cut blond hair, blue eyes and 100-watt smile, Glenn is the all-American hero. He will be
It wasn’t exactly front-page news at the time, but a new film reveals the significant role three women played in our history, against all odds Words WENDY IDE
the first American man to orbit Earth, making history and restoring the pride of the American people in the battle for space supremacy with the Soviets. One hundred and thirty-five million tune in to watch the launch, captivated as the tiny, silent figure of Glenn waves and climbs into a metal
capsule. What the nation doesn’t realise is that their hero would not have considered putting his life on the line were it not for the work of a brilliant young African-American mathematician: Katherine Johnson. This is the story of Hidden Figures, a film that celebrates the »
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INSPIRATION
unsung heroines of the space race. Johnson is played by Taraji P Henson who felt incensed that Johnson’s achievements had been ignored by history. “Had I known, maybe I would’ve dreamed of becoming a rocket scientist,” she says. “That’s some kind of power, to know that you sent men where no men have gone.” Johnson toiled behind the scenes at NASA, processing reams of raw numbers into usable data. In an era when sexism and racism were ever-present, she worked quietly and diligently, with no recognition. The state of Virginia was still segregated at the time. There were ‘coloured’ water fountains, segregated schools and racist abuse around every corner. But Johnson’s extraordinary brain brought down barriers around her. The film also tells the story of Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), the first female African-American supervisor at Langley, and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe), the first black female aerospace engineer. “I thought this was
Johnson (left, in 1980) was awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Barrack Obama in 2015 (right)
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fiction,” Spencer says. “I’ve seen footage from that era. There weren’t any women anywhere in sight.” With the current political landscape divided, director Theodore Melfi feels we need this story now. “The most important thing for me was that these women were just like you and I. Katherine Johnson was a single mom. Their home lives were as important as the NASA work.” NASA historian Bill Barry reveals that decision to employ women was financial; they could process the same data as men but were paid a fraction of their wage. During World War II, the need for labour meant the doors to Langley quietly opened to African-American women. In 1943, Dorothy Vaughan was the first black woman to work at NASA. She was segregated from white colleagues; forced to eat separately, and use ‘coloured’ bathrooms – a mile away from her desk. Sexism was rife. This, after all, was the Mad Men era. The credit for women’s work was routinely claimed by male colleagues. “Because this was women’s work, it was regarded as sub-professional,” explains Margot Lee Shetterly, who wrote the book on which the film is based. “Johnson fought to have her name recognised.” A maths prodigy, Johnson graduated high school at 14 and,
at 19, was the first black woman to attend graduate school at West Virginia University. Assertive, but never aggressive, she was, as Taraji P Henson says, “a quiet storm”. Watching the film, it’s heartbreaking to see Johnson have doors slammed in her face, and be forced to make coffee from a separate ‘coloured’ kettle. And this happened just 55 years ago. Katherine Johnson is now 98 years old and, in 2015, was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama, to acknowledge her work. “Oh, that was so exciting,” Johnson says now. Watching your struggles play out on the big screen must be a bizarre experience, but Johnson is philosophical. “I was so happy to see the film, and thought Taraji played me very well,” she says. “People will learn a lot. It shows girls that, if they want to do this kind of work, they can. At NASA they never had to ask me to do something again. They knew if I gave them an answer, that was the right one. It is about being prepared, so when an opportunity presents itself you’re ready to take it.” It was this unflappable attitude that won her access to the all-male classified meetings. “Is there a law against it?” she repeatedly asked, when told there was no protocol for a woman to attend the meetings. The men eventually conceded that, yes, perhaps this committed, brilliant woman should attend the top-secret briefings. It was one small victory in a lifetime of professional struggles, but a giant leap for womankind. Hidden Figures is released on Friday 17th February
Enjoy more stories in the Red free weekly newsletter. To sign up, text RED and your email address to 84499*
PHOTOGRAPHS GETTY IMAGES, NASA PHOTO ARCHIVE. *STANDARD NETWORK RATES VARY DEPENDENT ON YOUR PHONE PROVIDER. BY TEXTING INTO THIS SERVICE YOU ARE OPTING IN TO RECEIVE MESSAGES FROM US BY EMAIL AND SMS. YOU CAN OPT OUT FROM SMS BY TEXTING STOP TO 84499 AND FROM EMAIL BY CLICKING ‘UNSUBSCRIBE’
CLOCKWISE, FROM LEFT: The “human computers” at Langley; astronaut John Glenn; Henson as Johnson; Octavia Spencer as Dorothy Vaughan
SMART SESSIONS
Join us TO GET
SMART IN
2017
From power breakfasts to networking soirées, Red’s Smart Sessions are a series of monthly events bringing our readers together to learn, be inspired and connect
March DON’T MISS
PHOTOGRAPHS VICTORIA LING, GETTY IMAGES
IN CONVERSATION WITH GILLIAN ANDERSON AND JENNIFER NADEL The Red cover star and the journalist will be discussing the key themes from their new book We: A Manifesto For Women Everywhere, plus leading a series of transformative exercises to improve your life. Over breakfast at the elegant Bronte restaurant, Trafalgar Square, you can ask questions and pick up some brilliant life advice for the year ahead. For more information, visit Wewomeneverywhere.org
Sign up to be the first to hear about Red’s Smart Sessions, at Redonline.co.uk/ red-women/ red-events WHERE: Bronte restaurant, 1-3
Strand, London WC2N 5EJ WHEN: Thursday 9th March,
8am-9.30am PRICE: £27.50, plus booking fee BOOK AT: Redonline.co.uk/ red-women/red-events/ gillian-anderson-smart-sessions
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Fashion
PHOTOGRAPH MAX ABADIAN
Edited by OONAGH BRENNAN
IT’S SHOW TIME
New collections alert: SPRING is in situ, so we’ve rallied some of the BEST women we know to present an ECLECTIC cacophony of SLOGAN tees, flirty FRILLS and HEFTY earrings. It’s all hotting up!
Cotton T-shirt, £480; wool trousers, £980, both Dior
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aLLa
WOM N STRONG YET FEMININE. WHIMSICAL YET BOLD. YES, SPRING’S NEW STYLE ETHOS IS THAT ANYTHING GOES. AND WHO BETTER TO SHOWCASE THIS JOIE DE VIVRE THAN OUR FAVOURITE FASHION ICONS IN THE NEW COLLECTIONS. PERFECTION… Photographs JONTY DAVIES Styling NICOLA ROSE
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DOLCE & GABBANA WORN BY CAROLINE WINBERG
Flamenco frills, polka dots and tongue-incheek prints, Dolce & Gabbana’s S/S 17 collection was all we’ve been dreaming of. Fun, flirty and feminine – we’ll take that Silk chiffon dress; satin bra (just seen); sequin and embroidered shoes, all price on request, all Dolce & Gabbana
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LOUIS VUITTON WORN BY GRACE GUOZHI
Nicolas Ghesquière’s latest collection for Vuitton delivered a sharp dose of tailored suiting with a clever steer of the experimental and a heavy hand of sophistication. Be who you want to be in slick stripes and a cropped wide leg; modern insouciance personified Polyester-mix top, £1,400; wool trousers, £800, both Louis Vuitton. Satin sandals, £350, Amanda Wakeley
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MIU MIU
WORN BY CECILIA CHANCELLOR
A high-shine mac in cornflower blue with appliqué flowers and a cheeky stripe of a belt? Can we wear it inside? This season for Miu Miu is looking bright, fizzy and empoweringly playful Ciré coat, £2,020; leather belt, £300, both Miu Miu. Gold-plated earrings, £380, Oscar de la Renta at Harrods
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ROBERTO CAVALLI
WORN BY DAPHNE SELFE
Take it back to the ’70s in floor-sweeping floaty dresses, a cacophony of patchwork prints and a rockin’ studded leather jacket that tells everyone you’re no pushover Leather jacket, £5,965; lamé dress, £10,335, both Roberto Cavalli. Faux-pearl earrings, £210, Marni. Leather shoes, £390, Tod’s
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MAX MARA WORN BY NIKI TAYLOR
Every style aficionado needs a trans-seasonal coat to show you mean business. Max Mara’s got it wrapped in this cocooning number. Fuss-free, classic, job done Polyester coat, £1,160; leather belt, £210; leather shoes, £540, all Max Mara
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GUCCI
WORN BY PORTIA FREEMAN
Ooh la la, there’s no hiding in this delicious Gucci confection – and who’d want to? Tiers of frothy tulle, and a big fat red embroidered heart on your chest to make you feel like the star of the show. But hey, you always were… Tulle gown, price on request; velvet wedges, £1,290, both Gucci. Crystal and stone earrings, £240, Marni at Net-a-porter.com
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FENDI
WORN BY GIANE ALVES
The new spirit of Fendi is younger than we’re used to. Utilitarian stripes every which way, jazzy monochrome leather trousers and seductively cut-out knitwear, modern dressing has crossed a line – in a very good way Cotton jumper, £595; leather trousers, £2,280; cotton and elastic boots (just seen), £710, all Fendi MARCH 2017 REDONLINE.CO.UK 107
CHANEL
WORN BY LAURA BAILEY
King of style Karl Lagerfeld has done it yet again with a chic lace co-ord that will have a life long after the season is over. J’adore, j’adore, j’adore Lace top, £1,425; lace trousers, £3,060; mesh and sequin shoes, £710, all Chanel
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PAUL SMITH WORN BY YASMIN LE BON
Subtle silhouettes and richly unorthodox colour combinations – this candy floss blouse with petal frond cuffs proves Paul Smith is flowing with plenty of gentle quirk Silk shirt, £535; wool trousers, £305, both Paul Smith
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PRADA
WORN BY SOPHIE HOLMES
This mind-boggling Prada co-ord, with its fluff and headspinning print, needs no extra adornment. Oh, apart from some kitsch summer flower sliders Jersey and feather top, £1,030; jersey and feather trousers, £815; rubber belt, £200; rubber sandals, £490, all Prada
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GIORGIO ARMANI
WORN BY HELENA SOPAR
There’s no getting around it, life is just better when you add exuberance, and this highly worked Giorgio Armani dress is the most vivacious of all Tulle and viscose dress; silk and tulle skirt, both price on request; leather shoes, £490, all Giorgio Armani Hair Ben Cooke at Frank Agency for Lockonego, using Pantene; Ernesto Montenovo at David Artists, using Bumble and Bumble; Simon Maynard at Terri Manduca Agency for Matthew David Salons Mayfair. Make-up Michelle Campbell at Frank Agency, using XIP Professional; Neusa Neves at Terri Manduca Agency, using Bobbi Brown. Nails Kim Treacy at Stella Creative Artists. Stylist’s assistant Gabriella Minchella. Location thanks to Big Sky Studios
BERLIN CALLING THE EIGHTIES CLUB SCENE MEETS EASTERN EUROPEAN AUSTERE CHIC THIS SEASON. START WITH CLASSIC THEN PILE ON BOLD, ECCENTRIC PIECES WITH A TOUCH OF BAUHAUS. TRUST US – YOU’LL BE PERFECTLY SET UP FOR SPRING Photographs MAX ABADIAN Styling NICOLA ROSE
Pray silence for this Gucci magic: it moves, it sparkles, it somehow works over go-faster tracksuit trousers. Alessandro Michele, you have our vote always and forever Silk coat, £8,910; jersey trousers, £480; leather and crystal shoes, £1,610, all Gucci
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All hail Bottega’s rhapsody in modern beige – today’s neutrals are on a continuum of lemon to taupe. Pick your shade, then tie a mannish leather belt around it all Silk-mix jumper, £640; silk skirt with leather belt, £1,150, both Bottega Veneta. Suede bag, £690, Tod’s 114 REDONLINE.CO.UK MARCH 2017
Can I really wear tailored khaki shorts to the knee? Yes, you can. It’s all about attitude and punchy accessories. Go big and bold on both Cotton jacket, £740; cotton shorts, £450, both Mulberry. Leather belt, £565, Agnona. Leather clutch, £335, Pierre Hardy. Leather shoes, £615, Casadei
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You know the blueprint now: a dash of military, some Berardi frills, big hair, big earrings and shoes with grit will mean you’re more than spring-ready Cotton-mix jacket, £85, Rokit. Rayon jumpsuit, £1,860, Berardi. Rope and metal earrings, £280, Marni. Leather shoes, £420, Carven
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Did Miuccia Prada have sea anemones floating in her dreams when she conjured this magnificence? Marine life and utility buttons; what’s not to love? Wool-mix and feather coat, £2,065; wool sweater (just seen), £465, both Prada. Acetate sunglasses, £139, Kate Spade New York
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It’s easy. It’s breezy. It’s the best form of swooshy sexy. Rochas has done it again. *Riffles through wardrobe to find all those hidden cardigans* Cotton cardigan, around £384; cashmere jumper, around £420; tulle skirt, around £1,492, all Rochas. Metal sunglasses, £245, Marc Jacobs. Leather shoes, £575, Charlotte Olympia
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If Bauhaus did fashion. These undulating Sportmax stripes take this simple sheath dress and throw it skywards. Slip on. Go. And wow them all Cotton-mix dress, £620, Sportmax. Glass and resin necklace, £215, Diana Broussard at Liberty
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There are so many classic military details in this Miu Miu ensemble. But wait, some Cyndi Lauper shoes. And a flash of peacock at the ear. The moral of this story: start simple, then add toppings Canvas jacket, £360; canvas skirt, £540; leather shoes, £755, all Miu Miu. Rope and metal earrings, £320, Marni
The spirit of the Eighties lives on. Oh yes, the hair is big but the sparkles and colour are tempered with nipped-at-the-waist simplicity Crepe and sequin dress, £2,910, Michael Kors Collection. Gold-plated resin earrings, £375, Oscar de la Renta at Net-aporter.com. Leather and suede shoes, £545, Charlotte Olympia Model Dewi Driegen at Models 1. Hair Bjorn Krischker at Frank Agency, using John Masters Organics. Make-up Michelle Campbell at Frank Agency, using MAC Pro. Stylist’s assistant Gabriella Minchella. Location thanks to Big Sky Studios and The Barbican
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WORD
UP HAVE YOUR SAY IN SLOGAN T-SHIRTS EMBLAZONED WITH BOLD, ‘READ ALL ABOUT IT’ STATEMENTS. BUT BE SURE TO COUNTER THEIR INHERENT CASUAL QUALITY WITH A PAIR OF JAW-DROPPING, SCULPTURAL EARRINGS Photographs BRIAN DALY Styling LAUREN T FRANKS
If wearing your heart on your sleeve isn’t really your style, say it subtly, with a well-chosen mini slogan, and let your earrings do the talking Cotton T-shirt, £45, Wood Wood. Silver ear cuff, £45, Lumo at Otiumberg. Recycled silver earrings, price on request, Prabal Gurung
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They say pictures tell a thousand words, but why not have both? A slick, tailored trouser and gobstopper earrings make a T-shirt evening appropriate Cotton T-shirt, £235, Markus Lupfer. Cotton trousers, £725, Agnona. Metal and pearl earrings, £155, Sportmax. Rhodium-plated bracelet, £375, Uribe
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Give a Breton stripe the Midas touch with crushed-gold trousers and sculpted earrings. C’est très jolie Cotton T-shirt, £45, Whistles. Linen and silk trousers, £144, Intropia. Metal and resin earrings, £260, Marni
A slogan T-shirt styled with a classic blazer and jeans is the pinnacle of understated rock ’n’ roll cool Polyester and viscose blazer, £150, Gestuz. Linen T-shirt, £100, Sandro. Denim jeans, £300, Magda Butrym. Diamond ear cuff, £2,455, Jagga Jewellery. Gold-plated earrings, £312, Akria at Wolf & Badger. Gold vermeil bracelet, £595, Felice Dahl. Steel and gold watch, £399, Emporio Armani
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Ahoy there! Set sail into a whole new world of understated cool, in biro-blue denim and oversized tees. Note: this season is awash with ’80s accessorising Cotton T-shirt, £32.50, J Crew. Denim jeans, £450, King & Tuckfield. Gold earrings, £3,500, Buccellati. Rings, from top: Gold-plated, £200, Nina Kastens. Gold, £250, Loren Stewart at Otiumberg. Gold, £244, Christina Soubli at Jewel Street. Fishnet tights, £11, Calzedonia. Suede embellished shoes, £625, Sergio Rossi Model Helena Sopar at Select. Hair Marco Testa, using Bumble and Bumble. Make-up Lindsey Poole, using Kevyn Aucoin. Fashion assistant Anisha Parbhakar-Brown
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Beauty
Edited by ANNABEL MEGGESON
WORDS REBECCA HULL. PHOTOGRAPHS BENOIT AUDUREAU, GETTY IMAGES
Jo Malone The Bloomsbury Set Colognes, £45 each for 30ml. Available 1st March
Bohemian RHAPSODY Inspired by the fabled Bloomsbury Set and the bohemian weekends they spent buried at Charleston House in Sussex, this range of five colognes is one of Jo Malone’s most memorable collections. “I wanted to evoke the heady gardens, the wood panelling, the late nights...” says director of fragrance development Céline Roux, who’s especially proud of Tobacco & Mandarin, “as it took a long time to get the balance just right”. We also love the warmth and spiciness of Whisky & Cedarwood. But don’t worry what anyone else thinks – the Bloomsbury Set never did.
Find more spring fragrance suggestions at REDONLINE.CO.UK
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Fresh skin, rosy cheeks and just-bitten lips... think of pink as your new neutral
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BEAUTY
PRETTY IN PINK GLEAMING SKIN, RADIANT HIGHLIGHTS AND YOUR NEW NEUTRAL – A SHEER AND GLOWING ROSE. MEET SPRING’S NEW MAKE-UP MOOD » Words ALEXANDRA FRIEND Photographs CHRIS CRAYMER Creative direction NICOLA ROSE
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Bare Minerals Gen Nude Radiant Lipstick in Baby, £18 – 15 neutral lip shades, whatever your skintone
E
asy, modern and youthful – we’ve always got time for minimal make-up. But in recent seasons the faces we’ve seen on the runway have looked… well, maybe a little too minimal? Not so this spring. From the deepest plum to the palest bisque, a pretty injection of pink has lifted beauty’s favourite palette of neutrals into fresh territory, with healthy cheeks, just-bitten lips and a simple sweep of eyeopening rose on the lids. And it’s all eminently wearable, whatever your skin tone. Here’s how…
Nars Soft Matte Concealer in Crème Brulée, £23
A FRESH START “Massage and moisture are the key to luminous skin,” says lead UK stylist for Nars Cosmetics, Anna Priadka, who created the looks on these pages. She’ll spend a full five minutes prepping a model for a shoot or show, but even a fraction of that will leave skin looking plumpedup and alive. “Take a minute longer than usual to work a juicy serum, facial oil or emollient-rich moisturiser into your skin. It should feel bouncy, even slightly tacky to the touch before you go in with your make-up.” ESPA Optimal Skin ProSerum (£49) and Kiehl’s Pure Vitality Skin Renewing Cream (£49) are current Red favourites – both have the ‘slip’ required for a minute-long massage and give skin a healthy-looking glow.
Guerlain Météorites Happy Glow Pearls, £53 – Playful highlights
extra coverage, almost kneading it into the skin for the most imperceptible effect. Finally, powder areas prone to shine, with the barest dusting over nose, between brows, just below the lower lip and on the jawline and (if needed) press a last veil of highlight over cheekbones.
ROSE TINTED
“Cream blush is deliciously translucent, but if you prefer the longevity of powder, layer cream or liquid highlighter Layering (the art of building up your base in whisperunderneath for added luminosity,” says Priadka. Either light coats) is nothing new, but in the name of even-lessway, apply from the apple of the cheek up and out is-more, we’ve lately forgone all-over applications of towards the temple. Wash lids with dusky, mauve-tinted anything for a thoughtful patchwork of product: or bisque pinks. Nothing too vibrant here – be guided by a smoothing primer where make-up wears off soonest the natural tones in your cheeks or lips, but for the sake (usually nose, chin and between the brows), of longevity and the truest tones, prep lids with something lightly shimmering on a light coat of concealer first (moisture, PRO NOTES: cheekbones, bridge of nose and cupid’s whether added before or mixed in with CONCEALER bow, then foundation only where skin concealer, is key). Your fresh look is KNOW-HOW looks uneven – around mouth and completed by pushing a soft, black For an even barer (but still nose, chin, forehead and jawline. pencil up and in between your lashes, beautiful) base, we’ve been wearing Use the warmth of your fingers to followed with a firm press of the Nars’ weightless Soft Matte Concealer curlers and a single feathery coat of melt concealer over areas that need directly over a velvety and mattifying mascara. Keep brows soft and fluffy, primer. When massaged and melted Nars Soft Matte brushed through and set lightly over blemishes, shadowy or red Concealer, £23 each – with gel (choose a fibre-boosted areas and eyelids with a warm Creamy, malleable and formulation if your own are sparse), lightweight – a concealer fingertip, we haven’t and for a just-tinted lip, press colour revelation in 16 shades needed foundation. over a freshly exfoliated and well-balmed mouth with the tip of your finger. »
THE BAREST BASE
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BEAUTY
Nars Sheer Lipstick in Damage, £21. Top, £960, Roksanda. Earring, around £1,450 for one, Sophie Bille Brahe. Hoop earring, £99 for a pair, Ernest Jones
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BEAUTY PRO NOTES: SHADE GUIDE From an almost-purple plum to the palest calamine, there’s a pink for everyone, says Priadka. “Try dusky rose on medium, olive and Asian skins, cherry tones on darker skin, and pastels on pale complexions. Hot-pink blush looks incredible on everyone – it’s pigmented enough for black skin but looks sheer and fresh on pale skin if dusted on lightly.”
Bare Minerals Gen Nude Buttercream Lipgloss in (from left) Flirt , Forbidden and Must Have, £17 each – Sheer and lip balm-like
Nars Satin Lipstick in Sexual Healing, £21. Dress, £945, Giuseppe di Morabito. Earring, around £425 for one, Sophie Bille Brahe. Rings, from £265, Pandora
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Giorgio Armani Power Fabric Longwear High Coverage Foundation, £40 – Light, comfortable yet will stay the day »
Lancôme Cushion Blush Subtil in Sparkling Framboise, £28 – A suits-all pop of hot pink
BEAUTY Nars Satin Lip Pencil in Yu, £20. Dress, £7,220, Gucci. Earrings, £88, Edge of Ember
Bbrowbar Brow Build, £19 – Softer, fuller, fluffed-up brows
Dior Addict Lip Sugar Scrub, £24 – Almostedible lip prep Paul & Joe Pearl Foundation Primer in Bon Bon, £25 – Fresh and dewy, under or over make-up Nars Eyeliner Pencil in Black Moon, £16.50 – Smooth and smudgeable 136 REDONLINE.CO.UK MARCH 2017
Nars Narsissist Unfiltered II Cheek Palette, £45 – Spring’s must-have palette
“FRESH PINKS GIVE MAKE-UP BAGS AN UPDATE THIS SPRING”
Bare Minerals Gen Nude Radiant Lipstick in Xox (top) and Mantra, £18 each – Neutral lip shades, whatever your skintone
Nars Blush in Bumpy Ride, £23 – A glow-giving rose with peachy tones
STYLING SOPHIE HOOPER. MODELS ELISE AARNINK AT ELITE LONDON, GLADYS AT M+P MODELS, HILDA LEE AT NEXT LONDON. HAIR TONY COLLINS AT EMMA DAVIES AGENCY, USING L’ORÉAL PROFESSIONNEL. MAKE-UP ANNA PRIADKA FOR NARS COSMETICS. NAILS EMMA WELSH AT AUGUST MANAGEMENT, USING CHANEL LE VERNIS AND BODY EXCELLENCE NOURISHING AND REJUVENATING HAND CREAM. LOCATION THANKS TO LOFT STUDIOS
Nars Radiance and Smooth & Protect Primers, £27 each – These primers are your first step for a weightless base
EVENT
Come to an evening of trend demonstrations and one-to-one make-up consultations
Reboot your
make-up bag
WITH NARS
Ask the experts: Red’s Annabel Meggeson, left, and Nars’ Anna Priadka, below
A
flattering sweep of Orgasm Blush, a generous flash of Audacious Mascara or a luminous covering of Velvet Matte Skin Tint – our make-up bags would be nothing without Nars, and the pages of Red not nearly so pretty. In celebration of this issue’s ethereally lovely spring shoot Pretty in pink (find it on page 128), which showcases the new season’s looks and Nars’ beautiful new make-up, we’re holding a very special evening of trend demonstrations, one-to-one make-up consultations and plenty of beauty chat, hosted by Red’s beauty director Annabel Meggeson and Nars’ lead stylist make-up artist Anna Priadka. So if you want to know how to create beautiful skin, find the perfect shade of blush or master a softly smoked eye once and for all, come and find us at Nars’ fab new store. Annabel and Anna will guide you through some key products and looks, then you can enjoy a glass of fizz while you shop (benefitting from the hands-on knowledge of the Red and Nars make-up artists and with 10% off any purchases made on the night). See you there!
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How to book
WHERE: Nars Covent Garden Boutique,
9 King Street, London WC2E 8HN WHEN: Wednesday 8th March 2017, at 6.30-7.30pm or 7.30-8.30pm HOW MUCH: £15, plus booking fee. Ticket includes a glass of prosecco, a spring trends demonstration with Annabel and Anna, a 10-minute consultation for every attendee, 10% off Nars products and a Nars goodie bag, worth £50. BOOK*: Visit Redonline.co.uk/red-women/ red-events/nars-beauty-masterclass
*TERMS AND CONDITIONS APPLY. SEE THE WEBSITE FOR FULL DETAILS
Beauty advice, bubbly and a goodie bag worth £50. Join us for a masterclass with Nars
BEAUTY BODY
NO PAIN,NO GAIN? With a desire to ‘reshape her silhouette’, Red’s columnist Rosie Green embarked on three days of sparse eating and body torture. But was it all worth it?
T
he email arrived on a day I was feeling particularly lumpen. Sender: Henri Chenot Spa, Italy. Subject heading: Reshape your silhouette and achieve a new bikini body. SOLD! Forget months of slog in the gym, here’s 72 hours to Malibu Barbie, on a luxury three-day slimming programme! Where do I sign? I wanted (slash that, needed) to kick-start a leaner, healthier me, but was lacking the oomph to instigate any lifestyle changes on my own. So after some undignified begging to Red’s »
So what’s the key to reshaping your silhouette?
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BEAUTY editor, I was hurtling towards the glamorous L’Albereta Hotel, an hour outside Milan, accompanied by my husband, in the hope of combining my total body overhaul with a romantic minibreak. We checked in and went to dinner. As my husband savoured the bread basket and relished his mozzarella, fillet steak and red wine, I ate my calorie-controlled salad and fish. He left feeling satiated, but not stuffed (what a skill!) while I felt envious and slightly empty. Back in the room I found the next day’s schedule: physical examination at 9am, then hydromassage, cellulite treatments, cryolipolysis and ‘LED Body’ (nope, me neither). It was at this point that my husband, realising my timetable of body torture would render me absent from our romantic minibreak, devised an agenda of his own – morning cardio session at the hotel gym, coffee and papers, working off his sleep debt and back to the restaurant for lunch.
Rosie, below, embarked on a three-day slimming programme at L’Albereta Hotel in Italy
DAY ONE WAS NOT UN-PAINFUL. I was
bubble-pummeled, wrapped in mud and plastic sheeting, and hosed down with a small water cannon. A mechanical cellulite massage felt like being attacked by a crab with a vendetta, while a suction massage was toe-curlingly painful. Afterwards I met my husband for lunch, a little broken. Bright eyed and rested, he gloated about his workout (sweaty, rewarding, endorphin inducing) and ordered pasta. I had a small and healthy version of risotto then rushed back to my paper pants, leaving him planning a strength training session in an enviably self-motivated way. After lunch came cryolipolysis, aka fat freezing. Considering this to be a major treatment (more hitech and recovery can be hard) I declined, but did concede to LED Body, which used different wavelengths of light to tone and reshape (the
treatment of choice for Victoria’s Secret angels, no less). Day two was much of the same for both of us. Then on day three, after some final mud wallowing and hosing down, we were on our way back to the airport, pondering the trip. Although I felt lighter and cleaner, in reality the only pounds I’d lost were in sterling*. While my husband, who’d listened to his body, done exactly what he pleased and thoroughly enjoyed his eat/sleep/gym repeat cycle, looked great and had dropped five pounds. There’s a lesson in that… *If you had pounds to lose and ate ‘Chenot’ for seven nights you would lose weight. Fact. The Slimming Programme costs from around £2,100 per person in a double room, for a minimum two nights; Albereta.it/en/hotel
How to lose weight like a man… *
*Disclaimer: based purely on author’s and husband’s own views Women (who are more likely than men to restrict food groups) create a wagon to fall off. Ban nothing, eat everything – just don’t overdo it. SWEAT WHEN YOU EXERCISE. Men
instinctively know you have to sweat, pant and grunt if you are going to see real results.
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TRY STRENGTH TRAINING.
Research shows women are much less likely to lift weights (US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) but doing so burns serious calories and ramps up muscle tone. HAVE A GOAL. Men motivate themselves with figures. Beat your time, increase your reps, extend your distance.
Try Cross Fit Workout of the Day; Crossfit.com THINK ABOUT YOUR HEALTH, NOT YOUR BUM.
Research by Michelle Segar PhD shows women who exercise primarily for weight-loss exercise less than those who cite other reasons. For more Red-rated spa reviews, go to REDONLINE.CO.UK
MAIN PHOTOGRAPH GALLERY STOCK
AVOID DEPRIVATION.
BEAUTY TROUBLE SHOOTERS
From dullness to dehydration, there’s something for all in this range of six targeted skin fixes.
MAKE-UP AND PLUMP
A NIGHT-TIME BOOST
A vitamin-packed mist to maximise your downtime, with soporific lavender and rose.
A peachy primer that’s packed with hyaluronic acid, for a goldenhour glow.
Bobbi Brown Remedies, £29.50 each
Smashbox Photo Finish Foundation Primer, £30
The
Alpha-H Beauty Sleep Power Mist With Vitamin Complex, £13
A CLEVER CLEANSE
Double cleansing just got one-stop, in a two-part pot that’s half silky balm, half calmative cream. Pixi + Caroline Hirons Double Cleanse, £24
SPRING SKIN
LIFE FORCE
Clever Chanel has used botanicals from the world’s blue zones (areas where inhabitants live longest) in its new anti-ager. Chanel Blue Serum, £81
superheroes
More hyaluronic acid (we can’t get enough at this moisture-depleting time of year) in a 15-minute mask that leaves skin feeling comfortably plush. Institut Esthederm Intensif Hyaluronic Masque, £31
This sheer firming cream leaves skin plump in all the right places. Fresh Black Tea Firming Corset Cream, £79
Words ALEXANDRA FRIEND
THE SERUM MAXIMISER
Seals in the effects of any night serum to turbo-charge your skincare routine. Estée Lauder Advanced Night Repair Recovery Mask-In-Oil, £55
LIP SERVICE
So healing it’s crept into our daytimes, too. Sarah Chapman
Skinesis Overnight Lip Concentrate, £32
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THE FACE SHAPER
THE EYE REFRESHER
Deliciously cooling, while giving tired skin a youthful sheen, here’s an eye cream we can get behind (and we don’t say that very often). Clarins Multi-Active Eye Revive, £35
For more Red-approved skincare buys, visit REDONLINE.CO.UK
PHOTOGRAPHS HEARST STUDIOS
A HYDRATION HIT
From face-plumping primer to the easiest ever double cleanse, Team Red have tried and tested these 10 new must-haves
BEAUTY
(SECRET)
WAYS TO
There comes a time when some of your crowd are looking fabulous but you can’t put your finger on why. Sharon Walker lifts the lid on how some women are holding back the years
THE INVISIBLE FACE LIFT Our jaw bones shrink as we age, with discernible effects on the shape of our faces and state of skin (ie: sagginess). “I restore definition and firmness by injecting mini ‘filler pillars’ at the side of the face, just below the ears. They create a scaffold-like support, which lifts skin back up and out,” says injectables queen Dr Barbara Sturm. “Because nobody thinks you put filler there, they can never put their finger on why you look so great. It can also be done last minute as it’s injected right at the edge of the face.” Dr-barbara-sturm.com
THE HALF-HOUR HAIR TRANSFORMATION They’re calling it the seven-day blow-dry, but what you won’t know is that the latest hair fix actually involves secret extensions to add volume as
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well as style. As the extensions are stuck in using (medical-grade) tape rather than individual bonds, and are added in moderation for a subtle swell, they only take 40 minutes and feel as fuss-free as they look. They can be slipped out after a week, or kept in for up to 10, if you don’t mind the maintenance. The 7-Day BlowDry, using Volumeze extensions, is available at Stephanie Pollard, from £270; 020 7751 5673
Instant eye opener
Doctors are using needles, not knives, to open the eye area and lift brows – it’s one of the most refreshing things you can do. “We use a Botoxfiller combo,” says Dr Michael Prager, who’s known for his clever work. “The Botox goes in along the bony ledge of the eye socket to relax the muscles that pull the eyebrow down, then the hollows above the eyebrows, which creep up on you as you age, are filled.”
AGELESS BROWS
It’s normally used to lengthen lashes, but some pros are prescribing formulas like Latisse to fill in brows, which become patchy with age. It can even be massaged into thinning hair lines, some derms say. And here’s a tip: when you get your brows threaded, get them tinted, too. It takes seconds, but volumises, covers fading hairs and adds a youthful shine. Latisse.com; Lilash.com, both from around £100
A BEAUTIFUL G AZE Irises, like skin, lose pigment with age. “It’s down to ultraviolet, and the ageing process,” says Optique 20/20 optician, Hitash Visavadia. “More and more women are supplementing their routines with tinted contact lenses, which increase depth of colour and definition.” Try Acuvue Define Lenses (from £19.99).
PERMANENT CONCEALER
There’s a reason make-up artists use concealer around the nose. “Those little veins around nostrils are a stealth ager,” says leading aesthetician Dr Vicky Dondos. She loves the new Cutera Excel V laser, which zaps vascular blemishes like spider veins and rosacea instantly: “Some clients ditch their concealer after a few sessions.” From £350; Medicetics.com
A juicier complexion
Retinol is an A-grade collagen booster and now that improved formulations mean the OTC versions are (nearly) as effective as their prescription counterparts, savvy women are adding it to their skincare routines – with glowing results. Get in on the act with the excellent Superstar Retinol Night Oil from beauty’s favourite ‘secret’ For more secret brand Pestle anti-ageing tips, go to & Mortar (£63). REDONLINE.CO.UK
PHOTOGRAPH © ESTATE OF GUY BOURDIN/ART + COMMERCE
LOOK YOUNGER
BEAUTY SKIN FOOD
UPDATE
I Love…
These Smoke Sticks from Topshop (£6.50 each). Great colours, easy to blend and they stay put.
WITH ITS FLASHES OF PINK AND GOLD, THIS SULTRY NUDE EYE & CHEEK PALETTE (£48) IS LAUNCHED WITH CHINESE NEW YEAR IN MIND, BUT, FRANKLY, WHO NEEDS AN EXCUSE TO BUY BOBBI BROWN? 146 REDONLINE.CO.UK MARCH 2017
They’re genius!
Essie’s Treat Love & Colour (shown in Sheers To You, Laven-dearly and Tinted Love, £8.99 each) are a great new one-stop for nails. Rich in oils, collagen and brightening pigments, they strengthen and perfect, leaving tips with a pretty tint. The lavender one even neutralises stained and uneven nail beds. Clever.
BEAUTY NOTEBOOK GLOW BETTER Decléor’s new Facial Pilates treatment uses powerful movements to lift and sculpt. At home, massage in Decléor Aromessence Magnolia Youthful Oil Serum (£76) – use thumb and forefinger to pinch along your jawline and up your cheeks. Facial Pilates, £75, at Decléor spas; Decleor.co.uk
BEAUTY INSIDER by ANNABEL MEGGESON
I’M BAH HUMBUG ABOUT ENFORCED ROMANCE ON VALENTINE’S DAY, but if you do
happen to be floating the idea of a getaway for two this month, you can’t get much better than an overnighter at the Four Seasons in Geneva. I went with my plus one and, from the short flight/transfer to the impeccable hotel, it was an EFFORTLESSLY GOOD TIME. As well as the wonderful room, and dinner at Japanese-fusion restaurant Izumi on the top floor, the highlight was spending time at Spa Mont Blanc. Run by Espa and the Four Seasons, who both invest heavily in training – and retaining – staff, treatments are consistently good. I also rediscovered Espa’s NOURISHING CLEANSING BALM, whose
texture is beautifully pitched between slip and grip. Follow with Espa Optimal Skin ProSerum.
Read Annabel’s weekend beauty edit at REDONLINE.CO.UK
This month I have been…
ADDING Welleco Protein For Kids (£26) to the kids’ almond milkshakes; SLATHERING on Tom Ford Velvet Orchid Hydrating Emulsion (£36) for a hit of MY COMPLEXION CLAIMING opulence; WAS GLOWING. Alpha-H Absolute Lip Fourseasons.com; Perfector (£19) as the best from £550 a night lip softener ever.
PHOTOGRAPHS IMAXTREE, HEARST STUDIOS
Balmain S/S 17
Renowned for her holistic treatments and hand-blended products, Annee de Mamiel also suggests this seasonal soup to support skin. Fry butternut squash, onion and turmeric (antioxidants); add coconut milk (healthy fats) and stock; whizz and finish with pancetta and coriander.
De Mamiel Restorative Cleansing Balm, £54
Living
Edited by PIP McCORMAC
WORDS PIP McCORMAC. PHOTOGRAPH LAURA EDWARDS. FOOD STYLING SUNIL VIJAYAKAR
Zingy,
BRIGHT, FRESH
At last, some seasonal colour at the farmer’s market – a flash of energy after the beige of winter roots. And there’s nothing brighter than the forced rhubarb in abundance this month – bolts of crimson to jolt you into spring. Simmer gently with honey and fresh orange juice for an easy dessert to keep in the fridge, or head to Redonline.co.uk for our very best rhubarb recipes. A sign of warmth on its way.
For more seasonal recipes, go to REDONLINE.CO.UK
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LET’S GET TOGETHER Flora Shedden’s spring recipes mark a new way to entertain. Good food eaten in good company, and easy to prepare – a lightness of flavour Photographs LAURA EDWARDS
F
ood for me is an excuse to gather people. It isn’t just about eating, it’s all the little things: passing the bread, tales from the over-tipsy, sticky fingers, dishes that remind guests of anecdotes past. Cooking is the rewarding route to get you there. These recipes are all ideal for spring, a relaxed style of dining that should entice and encourage you to have people over.
CARDAMOM GIN The best G&T I have ever had – and I have enjoyed many – was in Barcelona. A huge glass of cardamom-perfumed gin, to be precise. I have failed to get back to Spain for more, so I’ve found a simple way of making my own.
MAKES: 500ml PREPARATION TIME: 10 minutes, plus time to infuse ●
● ● ● ● ●
●
500ml gin (a cheaper brand is best for taking on the other flavours) 2 tbsp juniper berries 2 tbsp green cardamom pods 1 tsp fennel seeds 1 tsp coriander seeds 2 strips of orange peel (avoid including the white pith; it’s too bitter) Few sprigs of mint (optional)
1 Mix all the ingredients together in a jug, then transfer the mixture to a sterilised bottle. Leave in a cool, dark place for three to four days. 2 Strain the drink, transfer it to a clean, sterilised bottle and refrigerate until required. Serve with plenty of ice and tonic.
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LIVING BAKED EGGS AND SWISS CHARD I love chard for the meatiness it brings to a dish and it is wonderfully versatile, taking on different flavours such as citrus and spice. It is best paired with fresh herbs, however, and I love this simple and speedy way of preparing it. Simply plonk the pan in the middle of the table and let people use big hunks of buttered toast to eat it with.
SERVES: 2-4 PREPARATION TIME: 15 minutes COOKING TIME: 15 minutes ● ● ● ● ● ●
● ● ●
150g rainbow chard Olive oil Knob of butter 2 banana shallots, finely sliced 1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg Small bunch of fresh marjoram, leaves picked (optional) 4 eggs 50g feta cheese 50g Parmesan cheese, grated, to serve
1 Preheat the oven to 200°C/ gas mark 6. Strip the leaves from
the chard stems and set aside. Roughly chop the coloured stems into 2cm lengths. 2 Heat a good glug of olive oil and the butter in an ovenproof frying pan. Add the chard stems and sliced shallots and cook over a medium heat for about five minutes, until softened and beginning to colour. Add the nutmeg and season lightly. 3 Add the marjoram leaves to the pan along with the chard leaves (you may need to tear those up a little). Stir everything together. Crack the eggs directly on top of the greens, then crumble the feta all over. Transfer the frying pan to the oven and bake for 10 minutes. You want the egg whites to have set but the yolks to remain runny. 4 Sprinkle the Parmesan over the contents of the frying pan and add some chopped herbs before serving. »
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LIVING THAI GREEN SOUP This soup is almost a curry, and ideal for this time of year. It’s both light and warming, fragrant and spicy. Winter moving into spring.
SERVES: 4-6 PREPARATION TIME: 15 minutes COOKING TIME: 15 minutes 125g rice noodles 1 tbsp olive oil ● 600ml vegetable stock ● 400ml coconut milk ● 8-12 raw tiger or king prawns, peeled ● Lemon and lime juice, to taste ● 125g mangetout, diagonally sliced ● 75g spinach For the curry paste: ● 5cm fresh root ginger, peeled and roughly chopped ● 3 garlic cloves, roughly chopped ● 1 lemon grass stick, bashed ● Small bunch of fresh coriander, leaves and stems roughly torn ● ½ tsp ground coriander ● 1 banana shallot, roughly sliced ● 1 green chilli, deseeded and sliced ● 2 fresh kaffir lime leaves ● 1 lemon, finely grated zest ● 1 lime finely grated zest
2 tbsp fish sauce To garnish: ● 4-5 spring onions, sliced ● Small bunch of Thai basil or fresh coriander, leaves picked and chopped ● 1 green chilli, sliced ● Lime wedges ●
● ●
1 First make the curry paste. Put all the paste ingredients into a food processor and blitz on a high speed until you have a smooth paste. Cook the rice noodles following the packet instructions, then drain and set aside. 2 Heat the oil in a large saucepan set over a high heat. Add the paste and cook for three to four minutes. Pour in the stock and coconut milk and bring to the boil. Add the prawns, reduce the heat to low and simmer for around 10 minutes, until the prawns turn pink. Season the soup to taste with salt, pepper and
the juice from the lemon and lime. 3 Put the garnishes in wee bowls for people to help themselves. Divide the drained noodles between four or six bowls. When ready to serve, stir the mangetout and spinach into the soup, then take the pan off the heat immediately. Ladle the soup over the noodles and serve. 2 tbsp clear honey 100ml light olive oil 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
RADICCHIO, FIG AND APPLE SALAD WITH WALNUT DRESSING
●
I love serving this salad towards the end of winter when the flavour of the leaves is at its best and you no longer crave big hearty bowls of food. Add some Serrano ham and a few boiled potatoes for a more robust meal.
1 First make the dressing. Put the walnuts, honey and half the oil into a food processor and blitz on a high speed until smooth. Add the rest of the oil and the vinegar and blitz again. Season with salt and pepper. 2 Prepare the apples just before you put the salad together, to prevent them from browning. Core the apples, then slice them finely. Put them into a bowl and cover with the apple juice, which helps to prevent oxidation. 3 Just before serving, toss the apples, radicchio and figs together with some of the walnut dressing in the bowl. Transfer the mixture to a shallow serving plate and finish with the cheese and baby salad leaves. Drizzle over the remaining dressing to serve. »
SERVES: 4-6 PREPARATION TIME: 10 minutes 2 red dessert apples Good splash of apple juice ● 1 large head of radicchio, cut into strips ● 8 small figs, cut or torn into quarters ● 100g Chaource cheese (or any creamy cow’s or goat’s cheese), sliced ● Baby salad leaves For the dressing: ● 75g walnuts, toasted in the oven ● ●
● ●
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LIVING HONEY AND PINE NUT TART My mum’s pine nut tart was my favourite, and even now, I can still remember the smell of sticky honey and roasted nuts wafting through the house. Back when Mum was knocking this tart up at a steady rate, pine nuts were far cheaper than they are today, so I’ll understand if you want to substitute half the quantity of pine nuts with flaked almonds, that work well in this recipe.
SERVES: 10-12 PREPARATION TIME: 25 minutes COOKING TIME: 40 minutes For the pastry: ● 100g cold unsalted butter, cubed ● 160g plain flour, plus extra for dusting ● 15g cornflour ● 50g icing sugar, plus extra for dusting ● 2 tbsp milk For the filling: ● 275g pine nuts ● 250g unsalted butter ● 200g caster sugar ● 50g soft light brown sugar ● 3 eggs ● 75g clear honey ● 75g plain flour ● 50g plain wholemeal flour ● 1 tsp finely grated orange zest (optional) ● Clotted cream, to serve
1 Preheat the oven to 170°C/ gas mark 31/2. To make the pastry, combine the ingredients in a food processor and blitz until you have a smooth dough. Alternatively, work the butter into the combined flours and sugar using a wooden spoon, then mix in the milk and gently knead until you have a smooth dough. Cover the dough with clingfilm and chill in the refrigerator for 15 minutes. 2 Meanwhile, for the filling, scatter
225g of the pine nuts on a baking tray and toast them in the oven – watch them like a hawk, as they will only take a minute. (If you are substituting almonds for half the pine nuts, toast these along with the pine nuts). Set aside the toasted pine nuts to cool. (Leave the oven switched on.) 3 Beat the butter and sugars together until light and fluffy, preferably in a free-standing mixer set to a medium speed. Add the eggs, honey and flours and mix again. Once combined, fold in the toasted pine nuts and orange zest, if using, with a wooden spoon or spatula.
4 Dust a surface with flour, then roll out the chilled pastry to a thickness of 3mm. Transfer the pastry to a 23cm, loose-based tin and press it gently into the sides. Trim off any excess pastry. Spoon the filling into the tart case and spread until level. Sprinkle the remaining pine nuts on top and bake for 35 to 40 minutes. 5 Dust with icing sugar and serve with clotted cream. Recipes taken from Gatherings: Recipes For Feasts Great And Small by Flora Fore more spring Shedden (Mitchell feast recipes, go to Beazley, £25) REDONLINE.CO.UK
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Throw, £120, Marks & Spencer Pendant light, £180, Debenhams
Drinks trolley, £299, Marks & Spencer
IN THE PINK There was romance in the air in the spring collections at Preen and Valentino, a soft swish in the ruffles cascading down the catwalk. And interiors are keeping the crush alive with sumptuous velvets, lace-effect etchings and mottled glassware – all looking calm, cool, and captivating. Proof that pink really is the new neutral. Crockery, £20 for an 18-piece set, Ikea
Cushion, £25, Marks & Spencer
Champagne glasses, £30 for four, Oliver Bonas
Cushion, £30, Next
Table, £200, House Of Fraser
Interiors’ newest trends are about making sanctuaries in which to relax. Because home is where the haven is
Valentino S/S 17
Paint in Confetti, £38 for 2.5l, Little Greene
SPRING FORWARD
Bottle, £40, Out There Interiors
Preen S/S 17
Marchesa S/S 17
HOME TRENDS
Compiled by SARAH KEADY
Tables, from £95 each, Broste Copenhagen
Cushion, £40, Raj Tent Club Coasters, £19 for a set of four, Debenhams
Sofa, £1,900, Sofas & Stuff
Lamp, £39, Marks & Spencer
Vase, £78, House Of Fraser
Rug, £65, Graham & Green
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Pom-poms, £8.50 for three, Talking Tables
Carafe, £12.50, Coxandcox.co.uk
Vases, £37.50 for a set of three, Broste Copenhagen
LIVING Cushion £10.99, H&M
Mirror, £69, Marks & Spencer Lampshade, £82.12, Nellianna at Etsy.com
Candle holder, £23, Asplashofcolour.com
Armchair, £1,395, Kirkby Design x Jon Burgerman at Kirkbydesign.com
Givenchy S/S 17
Loewe S/S 17
FINE GEOMETRICS These are bold patterns, but not as you know them. Softened like the Loewe collection by their pastel shades and accents of grey. In your home, use geometrics to enliven dark corners, or span the decades by mixing with mid-century shapes. » Planter, £20, Habitat
Prada S/S 17
Clock, £38, Showyourbonesshop at Etsy.com
Cushion, £135, Jonathan Adler
Cushion, £75, The Conran Shop
Bowl, £8, John Lewis
Floor lamp, £395, Asplashofcolour.com Fruit bowl, £10, Next
Towels, from £2 each, George Home
Frame, £16, Oliver Bonas
Throw, £60, Christiane Lemieux at House Of Fraser
Teapot, £30, Oliver Bonas
Side table, £230, Bordbord at Asplashofcolour.com
Tile, £8.99, Fired Earth
Espresso set, £35, Sarah Campbell for Magpieline.com
Tile, £8.99, Fired Earth
Fabric, £5 per metre, Ikea
Wall mural, £70, Graham & Brown
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LIVING
Rug, £300, Coxandcox.co.uk Mirrors, £330 for five, Graham & Green
Pendant light, £100, House Of Fraser
Salt and pepper shakers, £16.95, Rockett St George
Rug, £140, Ikea
WELL TRAVELLED
Side table, £125, Next
Cheese board, £21, David Mellor
Tray, £38, House Of Fraser
Fruit bowl, £42, Anthropologie
Cushion, £19.50, Marks & Spencer
Room divider, £45, Ikea
Side table, £95, Habitat
Baskets, £34.50 for a set of three, Soakandsleep.com Platter, £20, John Lewis
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Basket, £16, Debenhams
For more home inspiration, go to REDONLINE.CO.UK Paint in English Fire, £13.50 for 2.5l, Crown Paints
CATWALK PHOTOGRAPHS IMAXTREE
Rug, £149, Marks & Spencer
Cushion, £40, Laura Ashley
Marni S/S 17 Mary Katrantzou S/S 17
Chair, £250, Rockett St George
Vase, £30, House Of Fraser
Etro S/S 17
Vase, £15, George Home
This look is part boho, part international jet setter, wholly liveable and grown-up. Influenced by South American colours and the patterns of Etro and Marni, it’s moody shades next to ikat designs, cushions, stoneware and stripes. The trick to blending them is texture: rough-hewn surfaces and knotted fabrics – pieces you want to touch.
Apiece Apart S/S 17
Faux cactus, £65, Abigail Ahern
DESIGN LEGEND
Monsieur
BUTTERFLY
As he celebrates 20 years in design, Sarah Bailey meets prince of prints Matthew Williamson
Sofa, £1,699, Matthew Williamson for Duresta
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LIVING
Matthew Williamson with his latest venture, a new upholstery range for Duresta
W
ho wouldn’t want to live in a world designed by Matthew Williamson? Botanical prints, devore velvet and colour, always glorious colour… From his entrance upon the fashion stage in 1997 (Kate, Helena et al in jewel-toned headdresses), to heady days as poster boy of the Primrose Hill crowd, when it felt like he was photographed in an endless swirl of neon rainbow Ibiza hippy glamour, to creative directorship at Pucci; Williamson’s look has always been sumptuous. We meet today on a freezing, rimedusted London afternoon. He’s outside his new HQ in a rather refined Queen’s Park industrial park, sneaking a crafty fag. “Hiya, nice coat,” he sing-songs, spotting me first. His eyes are as blue as his beloved peacock feathers and the Mancunian accent is as it ever was – lilting, humorous, with just an edge of sarcastic bite. (That’s very him, of course, a touch of acid in all the sumptuary.) We’re here ostensibly to talk sofas – his collaboration with Nottinghamshire firm Duresta includes five gorgeous upholstery ranges, as richly whimsical as you would expect; and the evolution of his 20-yearold label into a lifestyle brand (rather like
Christian Lacroix who’s morphed from Paris couturier to eclectic purveyor of arty stationery, quirky hotels, etc), though conversation is inclined to snake hither and yon. Always an independent fashion player, Williamson and business partner Joseph Velosa (his one-time lover and life-time soulmate) have always had a knack for reading the zeitgeist – pioneering high-street collaboration with their legendary Designers at Debenhams collections, long before the monster designer collabs (H&M and the like) became a thing. Then when all the huge international brands started scratching their heads about the challenges of disruptive see-now, buy-now models, they made the decision to stop showing on the London catwalk, made their beautiful online boutique their flagship store and stripped their creative team down to a small and agile core. What can I say? Very modern. “I mean, I guess so. I feel humbled that you recognise those things we’ve done, because I’m the last person to credit myself.” He is almost pathologically modest, no more capable of taking a compliment if one was to actually tattoo it on his chest in sky-blue and pink ink. “I don’t want to come across as »
FROM TOP: As a baby with his mother, 1972; in his studio, 1998; Kate Moss backstage at Williamson’s catwalk show, 1997
MARCH 2017 REDONLINE.CO.UK 161
gloating or resting on my laurels,” he says. When I try to expound on the visual resonances I see in his archive and the embellished, lurex-trimmed world of current fashion wunderkind, Alessandro Michele at Gucci (having worn Matthew Williamson’s clothes for years I do feel qualified to comment), the peacock eyes look like they might pop with mirth. “You said it. Not me.”
R
ewind to the late ’90s, when Williamson first unfurled his fashion tail feathers, there was (rather as now) a rather austere and minimalistic mood in the air, which served only to make his version of bohemian glamour absolutely irresistible to those who loved that kind of thing. He had been an incredibly young student at Central Saint Martins, accepted at just 17 (“I think it was just a bit premature, I didn’t really know what I was doing”). Very early in his career, he was to catch the eye of young writer Plum Sykes at Vogue when he sent her a silk scarf in the mail “and she was seduced by the letter and the physicality of the thing. When I tell that to students now, they sort of scratch their heads and go, ‘huh?’.” But it was his inspirational friendship with rock ’n’ roll princess Jade Jagger that cemented that luxe-hippy Balearic aesthetic that catapulted him into the heart and wardrobes of London’s boho aristocracy. “I didn’t really know what a muse was or what it meant, other than that she was the thing... quite an extreme, flamboyant, artistic, crazy, jet-set life.” Of course not long afterwards, it was Williamson himself who was attracting the fandom. His glamorous BFFs over the years include a roll call of fabulousness from Sienna Miller, to Gwyneth Paltrow to Madonna. Williamson is a riveting storyteller and his anecdotes (him and Madge alone in a cinema she’d hired to watch Angela’s Ashes: “The film was not a barrel of laughs,” he deadpans) are surely the next fashion memoir waiting to happen. His 10th anniversary when Prince opened his runway show with a surprise gig – a chapter in itself. Conceived by his Purpleness as ‘a gift’ to his then girlfriend; even as Williamson and Velosa worked through the night, building a stage
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“I don’t want to come across as resting on my laurels,” says Williamson of his new home range in the show space with silk scarves muffling the hammers (only in fashion, readers), they remained sceptical that the gig would ever really happen. It was only on the day of, when oiling up model Anja Rubik’s legs and trying to muster some excruciating backstage social chatter with Anna Wintour, that Williamson heard definitively from his PA that Prince “has just got out of bed at The Dorchester and is on his way”. [Mimes complete emotional breakdown.] For such a brilliant raconteur, Williamson is, in fact, incredibly shy. When his old friend Plum Sykes interviewed him recently at the V&A, in front of a 300-strong crowd, she told Velosa, “‘I think he’s having a heart attack,’ and Joseph said, ‘Oh no, that’s normal’.” But, of course, it’s a complicated role being a brand figurehead these days. “I didn’t sign up to be an actor, or a raconteur or a chatty Cathy,” he eyerolls. And that’s the key bit of wisdom he likes to impart to the young students he mentors: “you better have fingers in many pies, because you can’t just sit and draw, mate.” Having said all that, the clever thing that Williamson and Velosa have done by unburdening themselves of the demands of a runway schedule (not to mention the unpredictable critical vagaries of the fashion intelligentsia), is to create more time, space and stability to concentrate on what
FROM ABOVE: At his S/S 05 show; S/S 09; Prince playing at the 2007 show
LIVING they do best. They continue to do a brisk trade in beachwear through Net-A-Porter (was there ever a label more synonymous with a posh kaftan?). And Williamson is itching to expand his burgeoning homeware collections into bed linens, paint, chinaware and beyond… Far from stepping away from his fabulous fashion clientele, they can now drop into the London HQ, where there are little room sets for private fittings decked out in the wallpapers he produces with Osborne & Little, shivering flamingopink feather lampshades and over-stuffed Louis Quatorze chairs. The fact that his entire 20-year archive (a treasure trove of rainbow hues and perfumed memories one could get lost in for days) shares this space only serves to make the environment more special. I love his description of the Matthew Williamson woman: “They’re optimistic women, they are creative women, they are probably not women who are looking for the next Céline jacket. That’s not my customer, but that’s okay. She’s probably sunning herself in Bali.”
PHOTOGRAPHS GETTY IMAGES
TALK TURNS TO HAPPINESS, WORKLIFE BALANCE, AND BEING 40-PLUS
(Williamson recently bought a house in the hills in northern Majorca, where he revels in the beauty of the landscape and the flora). Our time together is ticking and I’m whisking through my habitual quick-fire ‘Best Things In Life’ questions (design heroine: Zandra Rhodes; favourite painting: Millais’ Ophelia) when Williamson says he can’t not mention his and Velosa’s little baby daughter Skye, born by surrogate a year ago. Although he’s been lower-than-low-key about fatherhood in public (just one picture of his beautiful girl on Instagram as I am filing this story), the overwhelming love that radiates from him as we talk brings tears to my eyes. He shows me a picture on his phone of Skye wearing a rainbow crocheted beret which is, of course, simply perfect. “I’m sure every parent is the same… ‘Oh my kid loves nature’... but she’s really staring at flowers and colours and leaves and I know it’s probably quite common, but I’m just excited.” Like I say, who wouldn’t want to live in a world designed by Matthew Williamson?
His use of vibrant colour has always been a signature of Williamson’s work
GET THE LOOK Rug, £1,196 per m2, Matthew Williamson at The Rug Company
Throw, £125, Butterfly Home by Matthew Williamson at Debenhams
Frame, £15, Butterfly Home by Matthew Williamson at Debenhams
Daybed, £2,499, Matthew Williamson for Duresta
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Escapes
Edited by SARAH TOMCZAK
Sunset on the beach in Jamaica
FAR, TRAVEL
far AWAY… Don’t let the dark nights and winter chills dent your wanderlust, this is the perfect moment to book your escape »
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Stunning ocean views at GoldenEye
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ESCAPES THE BEACH HUTS AT GOLDENEYE, JAMAICA I arrive in Jamaica just as the sun has departed for the day. So when our taxi driver, Kevin, tells me the island has its own infinity pool I nod politely, not really understanding what he means. I can make out little of the landscape in the darkness and am too sleepy to ask him to explain. When I awake the next morning, though, his words make sense. I open the slatted wooden doors of our beach hut and there it is: Jamaica’s infinity pool. A glorious, clear ocean stretching out its arms in front of me, twinkling in the sun’s morning light. There and then, the island bewitches me. Of course, I’m not the first to fall in love with Jamaica – writer Ian Fleming was so enamoured with the island’s northern coast he decided to build the GoldenEye estate here in 1946, where the likes of Errol Flynn, Lucian Freud and Truman Capote would swing by for a rum or four. Fleming wrote all 14 of his Bond novels here. Today, the 52-acre GoldenEye resort boasts a mix of 13 one- and two-bedroom villas, six lagoon cottages and – the newest addition – 26 freestanding beach huts. The latter is where I find myself, though the word ‘hut’ is misleading. It’s more like a luxury tree house, painted turquoise and shaped like an octagon. Cheaper than the other rooms, the hut’s charm lies in the crafted balance of rustic and luxe – they’re designed to bring the outdoors indoors (there’s no air conditioning so the ocean breeze flows through the wooden shutters) but the lavish, thoughtful touches make I LISTENED you feel thoroughly spoilt (particularly the TO: Take The Night heavenly canopy bed). As well as nature’s Off by Laura Marling soundtrack, by night reggae plays from I READ: Eleanor Oliphant a Sonos system and my boyfriend and I Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman THE SOUVENIR I TOOK HOME: A bottle of
Blackwell Rum
drink rum on the private veranda, watching the sunset. We talk, laugh, read and write and make plans to live life as fully as we can; that’s the mood Jamaica puts you in. The following day, after some Blue Mountain coffee (heaven!) we explore GoldenEye’s grounds. An Indiana Jonesstyle wooden suspension bridge leads to the Gazebo: a restaurant in the trees overlooking the lagoon, serving up dishes from the sea (pan-seared jumbo scallops; island coconut steamed shrimp) and the grill (with meats from local farms). For something more casual, there’s the laid-back Bizot Bar; order the ackee and salt fish for breakfast – you won’t regret it. We only leave the resort once, and that’s to take a trip down the Rio Grande on a bamboo raft. A two-hour drive away, it’s a must for the views alone. As our guide calmly paddles us down the river, banana groves and lush greenery float by and life seemed simpler somehow. Back at GoldenEye there are plenty of watersports to choose from – snorkelling, paddle boarding – but our favourite? Kayaking. That’s the thing about GoldenEye – wherever you go, you’re close to water, which brings a certain clarity and space to think that I’ve been searching for back home. Even the mosquito bites are a small price to pay for such a paradise. For, as Attenborough once said, we too often lose our connection to nature and the world beneath our feet. But GoldenEye is a place that roots us back in the ground. What a rare and magical power that is. NATASHA LUNN »
Trip notes
Natasha takes in the ‘island’s own infinity pool’; she stayed in a Beach Hut, top right
GoldenEye Beach Huts from £500 on a room only basis; Goldeneye.com. Virgin Atlantic flies from London Gatwick to Montego Bay, return from £569 per person; Virginatlantic.com. For taxis book via Paradisetravelsinja.com
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Sarah with her family; the vibe at Montauk Beach House is laid-back luxe
THE MONTAUK BEACH HOUSE, MONTAUK, USA I have an analogy – stay with me for a minute – if The Hamptons (all pristine and painstakingly glossy) are like a red-carpet updo, then Montauk is a messy ponytail. More laid-back, cooler. Yet I only make this blissful discovery by chance. My family holiday is scrupulously planned in Bridgehampton, one of the chi-chi towns on the Long Island coastline, mainly inhabited by affluent ‘summering’ New Yorkers, where each white clapboard mansion has matching white hydrangeas in the front yard and the streets are lined with preppy Tory Burch and Lilly Pulitzer boutiques. I am to stay in one of these – until my friend’s very generous and spontaneous dad decides to pull said holiday home down and rebuild it months before our trip. Suffice to say, it isn’t ready. So we turn to Booking.com. A quick trawl of their abundance of holiday options (from the trendiest boutique hotels to budget b&bs) soon makes me realise The Hamptons is now beyond our budget, but Montauk, the furthest tip of the Long Island peninsula, famed for its state parks and miles of untouched beach, might just work. We enter our travellers (two adults, a four-year-old and baby), dates and budget and are presented with myriad options, with suggested room combos and even a rolling update on how many other people are booking that same hotel that day (and if that doesn’t make you commit quickly, nothing will). We settle on a few nights at The Montauk Beach House, which probably started its life as a less glamorous motel a few decades ago, but, it appears, has been given a fresh, hip lease of life.
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It’s on arrival we discover the whole of Montauk has the same unexpectedly cool vibe as our last-minute motel. Maybe it’s the younger Manhattanites, priced out of The Hamptons, who have made it their I LISTENED holiday destination du jour, or the TO: The kids singing success of gritty drama The Affair, Can’t Stop The Feeling by which is set against Montauk’s wild Justin Timberlake on repeat beaches – but there’s an infectious I READ: Where’d You Go buzz about it. The newly spruced Bernadette? by Maria Semple Montauk Beach House is a block THE SOUVENIR I TOOK from the ocean and has family HOME: Levain Bakery’s cookies. They were rooms with two double beds, giant gone before we got driftwood headboards and enormous to the airport windows, which are all connected by a wooden boardwalk and buffered from the road by giant swishy grasses. It also has a pool area with a European beach bar vibe, a wood hut selling $200 kaftans and by night, fire pits and a DJ. The rest of the town is edgy but mellow – artisan coffee is sold from an Airstream trailer, which is parked next to a Cynthia Rowley boutique, and a block away a SoulCycle has sprung up. We lap all this up. We are joined by my friend, who’s flown in from LA with her family, and her dad and his partner, who is, of course, holiday-homeless. En masse (six adults, four kids), we while away hours on the beach, the children squealing with delight as the waves crash around their ankles, then stroll up to the iconic A family room at The lighthouse, marvelling at the endless sky. Montauk Beach House, We eat lobster rolls at Gurney’s Inn and sit sleeping four, starts at £233 in the sand to watch the sun set and drink per person for bed, coffee Torpedo Sangria (with red wine, gin and and croissants. For more anise) at the groovy Navy Beach Club. information visit Booking. It is a quixotic experience, an com or Thembh.com. unexpected escape to a slower but more Flights to New York from satisfying pace of life. It’s also proof the perfect holiday isn’t always the one £149 each way with you’d planned. SARAH TOMCZAK Norwegian; Norwegian.com
Trip notes
ESCAPES
CLOCKWISE, FROM ABOVE: andBeyond Ngala Safari Lodge’s scenic swimming pool; Lucia, right, enjoyed gourmet salads and fresh fruits, sourced locally
ANDBEYOND NGALA SAFARI LODGE, SOUTH AFRICA
Rooms are decorated in classic colonial style
Tracking down a rhino on foot
An hour’s drive from the regional airport of Hoedspruit, andBeyond Ngala Safari Lodge sits on a 15,000-hectare private game reserve, part of the 3.2-million hectare Kruger National Park – one of the world’s biggest wildlife sanctuaries. We arrive at the lodge on a hot December day and are welcomed with hugs and wet towels by Beatrice, a Gwyneth Paltrow lookalike who tells me she moved to the bush eight years ago, and never looked back. Before I’m even shown to my room, we are escorted to the open-front restaurant, overlooking the bush and the lodge’s scenic swimming pool (an elephant quenches his thirst as we are shown to our table). The buffet lunch is a feast of gourmet salads, roast beef and fresh fruit and juices, all sourced locally from the surrounding communities. The lodge has 20 little thatched cottages dotted alongside a wooden path, which runs through the bush and is populated by monkeys and baboons, as well as some less-friendly species (no walking solo after sunset!). Each is
decorated in classic colonial style, with high ceilings, private verandas, plush beds and outdoor showers (which look even more tempting after our 22-hour journey). We decide to power through and only take time to quickly freshen up, before jumping in the Land Cruiser for our first game drive. Drives happen twice daily, first thing in the morning (days at the lodge start at 5am with coffee and a snack before setting off) and in the mid-afternoon, lasting until after nightfall. There are also walking safaris departing the lodge in the late morning. Our guide and tracker take us on an adrenaline-inducing search for ‘the big five’, which includes tracking down a rhino on foot – walking as quietly as possible and hiding behind bushes. In the space of a few days, we see a pride of lions chasing and killing a buffalo, an impala giving birth, a leopard climbing a tree, a yawning hippo, a hunting hyena, an octogenarian turtle crossing the road, a young elephant being scolded by his »
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ESCAPES mother, and many more incredible things I thought only belonged to an Candlelit dinner episode of Planet Earth. in the bush But it’s not just the wildlife that makes this once-in-a-lifetime experience. Every day, we stop for a surprise candlelit dinner in the bush, or a barbecue camp breakfast, while giraffes peek through the Bag, £35, trees in the distance. Ngala also arranges John Lewis wine tastings in the wild, or pancake parties for children (kids of all ages are welcome at the lodge, but only those over Dress, £120, French Connection six can take part in the drives). And during our stay, Lennox, a former ranger I LISTENED who now runs the Africa Foundation, TO: Leonard Cohen’s takes us on a tour of Welverdiend, Sandals, Songs Of Love And Hate Dior Beautifying where we plant trees at a local £170, Protective Creme I READ: Go Set A Watchman Ugg kindergarten (four volunteers Sublime Glow by Harper Lee SPF 30, £24.50 there work the land while also THE SOUVENIR Sandals, £159, looking after over 100 toddlers). I TOOK HOME: A handmade Marc Cain On our final game drive, just as wooden zebra from the Welverdiend’s community the sky is turning all shades of red craft market (above) and pink, we make a surprise stop on top of a hill, overlooking a waterhole where a family of hippos are stationed and a group of elephants are taking a sip. Beatrice has arranged a South A three-night stay at African craft gin tasting especially for Chanel andBeyond Ngala Safari us, accompanied by Vietnamese prawn Douceur Lodge starts from £2,200 rolls and chicken skewers, to raise one Rouge per person sharing a Coco last toast to the beautiful landscape. cottage on an all-inclusive Gloss, It feels like another world – in just £26 basis, including flights with four days here I have experienced South African Airways, road more than I would in four months at transfers and scheduled home. The gratitude washes over me. safari activities, Mahlatini LUCIA FERIGUTTI Ring, Luxury Travel; 028 9073 £55, 6050, Mahlatini.com Pandora
WHAT TO PACK
Giraffes peek through the bush; an African sunset
Great Escapes Africa and Great Escapes North America, both £27.99, Taschen
Earrings, £6, Accessorize
Suitcase, £149, Antler Shoes, £100, Geox
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PHOTOGRAPHS GETTY IMAGES. SHOPPING COMPILED BY SOPHIE HOOPER
Trip notes
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Self MIND • BODY • SPIRIT
Edited by BRIGID MOSS
EAT WELL
BEAUTY IN THE RAW They’re gluten-free, dairy-free and have no refined sugar – yet these raw desserts from The Hardihood are possibly the best treats you’ll ever eat Words BRIGID MOSS
Purple cream (see page 175)
R
aw cake that’s vegan with no gluten, no dairy, no refined sugars, added superfoods… and totally more-ish. Surely not possible? But I polished off my salted caramel ‘cheesecake’ square by The Hardihood (bought in the name of research), almost before I realised I’d started it. So I’m not surprised when The Hardihood’s Leah Garwood-Gowers and Daisy Kristiansen tell me they sold over 30,000 portions of their raw desserts in 2016. “When we give out samples, we tell people they’re vegan, refined sugar-free and so on,” says Garwood-Gowers. “Then when they taste it, you can see in their faces »
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how surprised they are. They say, ‘Oh my God, it’s actually delicious.’ That’s the idea: you don’t feel as if you’re missing out on anything.” I visited The Hardihood in their test kitchen, which is lined with vats of cashew nuts and superfoods. Garwood-Gowers, 28, is the business brain while Kristiansen, 30, is the recipe creator. We chat as Kristiansen tweaks greenery in an Insta shot of raw mince pies. Their feed is a perfect shopfront, beautifully curated, showing off sweetie-hued creations, the palette inspired by Stepford Wives pastels. “We call this Californian light in Shoreditch,” jokes Kristiansen. It’s looking like a bumper year for The Hardihood. Their recipe book Raw Cake is out this month. They’re launching three new flavours of cheesecake squares in Harrods food hall, including beetroot red velvet and cherry and almond, creating ownlabel desserts for Daylesford Organic, and a bespoke English flavour for Fortnum & Mason, plus, they aim to have a range in supermarkets. Pretty impressive when you think they only started trading in 2015. “Our idea was to create a café and juice bar community,” says Garwood-Gowers, “where the desserts would be vegan, but uplifting and vibrant.” They began experimenting with all-natural, colourful desserts… and didn’t stop. Now they’ve been eaten at Paris Fashion Week, praised by Deliciously Ella and Madeleine Shaw, and ordered for celebrations by brands from LK Bennett to Uniqlo. Not only are their puds all raw, they’re souped up and coloured with superfoods. “We have a lot of fun in our kitchen. We think of it as a bit Willy Wonka-ish,” says GarwoodGowers. They want you to have fun with their recipes, experiment too, swapping nuts or sweeteners, for example. “In ordinary baking, change one ingredient and it won’t turn out right,” says Kristiansen. “In raw baking, if you don’t get it perfect, it will still taste good.” If their salted caramel is anything to go by, it will taste really good. BRIGID MOSS
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RASPBERRY PEANUT BUTTER CUPS Our dads first introduced us to the delights of peanut butter and jam on toast, so we suppose it’s fair to say that these raspberry peanut butter cups are dad-inspired. Downright delicious, they definitely keep the PBJ dream alive.
MAKES: 20-25 cups PREPARATION TIME: 20 minutes For the chocolate mix: ● 250ml coconut oil, melted ● 60g cacao powder ● 255g rice malt syrup or alternative liquid natural sweetener ● 50g cacao butter, melted For the peanut butter filling: ● 130g peanut butter (no added sugar natural variety) ● 30g coconut sugar ● 85g rice malt syrup or alternative liquid natural sweetener ● 50g coconut oil, melted To decorate: ● Fresh raspberries, whole or chopped in half
1 Place all the chocolate mix ingredients in a high-powered food processor and blend on high until well combined (try not to over-mix). Transfer to a squeezy bottle, or a bowl if you don’t have one. 2 Place all of the filling ingredients in a medium bowl and stir to combine until smooth. 3 To assemble, take 20 to 25 small cupcake moulds or paper cases and line them on a tray that fits into your fridge. Divide the chocolate mix in half. Spread one half between the cases and place them in the fridge for 15 to 20 minutes until set. 4 Spoon a dollop of the peanut butter filling into each of the cases, on top of the set chocolate mix, smoothing it out with a spoon. Press in half a raspberry flat on top, or place a whole raspberry upright so that it sticks out from the chocolate. 5 Pour the remaining chocolate mix into each cup, covering the raspberry and peanut butter filling. The upright raspberries will poke through the chocolate nicely. Place back into the fridge for a further 20 to 30 minutes before serving. Having only one will be your problem…
SELF
FROM TOP: Daisy Kristiansen (left) and Leah Garwood-Gowers of The Hardihood; their Rocky road bites
ROCKY ROAD BITES This is one of our oldest recipes. When we first made them we couldn’t believe how good they were and how quick they were to create. It might be fair to say that they gave us faith that there was a whole world of raw desserts out there just waiting to be discovered. These bites are simultaneously soft, crunchy and seriously more-ish.
MAKES: 9-12 PREPARATION TIME: 30 minutes For the dry mix: ● 155g dried apricots (sulphur free) ● 40g walnuts ● 60g hazelnuts ● 80g mixed currants or raisins ● 55g goji berries
For the chocolate mix: ● 150g coconut oil, melted ● 60g cacao powder ● 30g coconut sugar ● 170g rice malt syrup ● 60g pitted dates, soaked in warm water for 30 minutes
1 Line a 15cm-square baking tin with baking paper. 2 Place all the dry mix ingredients in a high-powered food processor and pulse on high until just broken up and mixed together but still chunky. Transfer to a large mixing bowl and clean out the bowl of the food processor. 3 Next, make the chocolate mix. Add the coconut oil, cacao, coconut sugar and syrup to the clean food processor and blend on high, then add the dates and blend until smooth and combined. Make sure you don’t over-mix the chocolate or it can separate. If this happens and there is a lot of extra oil, add in some more cacao powder and malt syrup until it becomes smooth. 4 Pour the chocolate mix over the dry mix and stir together with a large spoon until well combined. Scoop into the baking tin, pressing the mixture down to ensure it is compact. Place in the fridge for three to four hours, or the freezer for one hour, until it has completely set, then cut into nine to 12 pieces. They will keep well in the fridge for up to seven days.
PURPLE CREAM We’re huge fans of acai bowls. We actually fell in love with them in Copenhagen, so when we created this recipe we wanted something similar but a frozen version that could be served with an evening meal as a pudding and not just for breakfast.
SERVES: 2-4 PREPARATION TIME: 20 minutes ● ●
●
● ● ● ●
●
200g frozen blueberries 130g cashews, soaked in water for two hours until soft, then drained 1 x 400ml can coconut milk (place in the fridge overnight, then use the top layer of cream only) 85g maple syrup or coconut syrup 30g coconut sugar 1 tbsp acai powder 1/2 tsp vanilla powder or seeds of 1 vanilla pod Pinch of Himalayan salt
1 Place all the ingredients in a high-powered food processor and blend on high until smooth, then pour into a freezerproof container or ice-lolly moulds. Cover, and freeze for two to three hours, or overnight. 2 Once the mixture is scoopable, scoop and serve. If it’s still hard, blend again in the food processor before serving. »
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SELF
Most raw cheesecakes rely on nuts, but this light variation doesn’t need them. The tart lime works in harmony with the soothing creamy coconut to create a delicate yet decadent dessert. Cut in cubes in our signature style and you’re looking at a winner.
SERVES: 6-8 PREPARATION TIME: 40 minutes For the base: ● 15g gluten-free oats ● 45g raw buckwheat ● 75g desiccated coconut ● Zest of 1 lime ● 1 tbsp golden linseed ● 1 tbsp tulsi (optional) ● 3 tbsp rice malt syrup
For the filling: ● 21/2 x 160ml cans coconut cream ● 75g desiccated coconut, ground fine like flour, plus extra to decorate ● 100g coconut oil ● 255g rice malt syrup ● 1 tbsp cacao butter ● 3 tbsp lime juice ● Zest of 1/2 lime ● Pinch of Himalayan salt To decorate: ● Thin slices of fresh lime ● Desiccated coconut ● Bee pollen*
1 Line a 15cm-square baking tin with baking paper. 2 For the base, place all the ingredients except the rice malt syrup in a high-powered food processor with a large pinch of salt and pulse until broken up roughly. Add the rice malt syrup and blend until medium-fine and well
combined, then press into the baking tin. Clean out the bowl of the food processor. 3 Add all the ingredients for the filling into the clean food processor and pulse until it’s all well combined and smooth, making sure the desiccated coconut has combined well. Pour the mixture, which should be quite runny, into the tin and quickly transfer to the freezer for two to three hours, until well set. 4 If the cake is rock solid when you take it out, let it thaw for 20 to 30 minutes before serving. It will keep in the fridge for up to three days. 5 To serve, cut into six to eight cubes and decorate with lime slices, desiccated coconut and bee pollen. Raw Cake: 100 Beautiful, Nutritious And Indulgent Raw Sweets, Treats And Elixirs by The Hardihood (Bluebird, £16.99; out 9th February)
For more healthy dessert recipes, go to REDONLINE.CO.UK
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* BEE POLLEN CAN PROVOKE A SEVERE REACTION IF YOU HAVE A POLLEN ALLERGY. AVOID IF PREGNANT OR BREASTFEEDING, OR IF YOU ARE TAKING BLOOD-THINNING MEDICATION
NUT-FREE COCONUT & LIME MOUSSE CAKE
SELF Ruth Hogan found she had the key to survival all along
STRONGER, ONE DISASTERAT A TIME Do you ever wonder how you’d cope if something terrible happened? After a series of life-changing events, from a car accident to cancer, Ruth Hogan sank into depression. But then she came back fighting
I
f you met me, you’d see a confident, possibly cantankerous peroxide blonde with a couple of stubborn dog hairs on my jumper. You’d probably notice my shoes – I’ve got a thing for metallics. What you wouldn’t be able to tell is, I suffered with depression after a serious car accident, then had breast cancer. I probably seem too upbeat, too ready to crack jokes and take risks. And it’s the bad things that have happened in my life that have made me the person I am. I’m a walking cliché: what didn’t kill me made stronger than I ever thought. A few months ago, I went coastal kayaking for the first time. I wasn’t keen, but a friend was desperate to go and promised me a calm sea and an enchanting morning exploring the secret coves of Pembrokeshire. What I got were towering waves, dangerous white water, and an hour spent trying to stay in my kayak. It was exactly what I had dreaded but, guess what? It was thrilling and I loved every moment. Would I do it again? In a heartbeat. Twenty-two years ago, aged 33, I was stationary at traffic lights when a car smashed into the back of my red
Suzuki Vitara so hard that it was written off. I suffered a back injury that left me in chronic pain and unable to work. Having spent the previous eight years building a career in local government human resources, suddenly I had no idea if I’d ever be employable again. I passed the days huddled on the sofa watching Richard and Judy on This Morning, knowing that at the end of each show, I could take more painkillers. THE TIMING, AS WELL AS MY BACK INJURY, WAS EXQUISITELY PAINFUL. The accident came on the
coattails of a messy divorce and my first solo house purchase complete with a substantial mortgage. My life revolved around four-hour slots when I could take more drugs to numb both the physical and emotional hurt. Four years later, I was still in pain so severe that I couldn’t work, when my cosy Victorian cottage flooded, then subsided. My mortgage payments – thankfully – were suspended but I had no money and had to live with the damage for months while it was monitored. Then my much-loved horse, Duke, a beautiful Connemara cross who’d been my companion for 14 years, died. At that »
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SELF point, I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if a plague of locusts had been thrown in for good measure. At first I railed against the injustice of it all. The wasted nights spent studying for qualifications while my friends were out having a good time – that I’d now never use again. The smug bastard in a shiny suit who had driven into the back of me and walked away scot free. The damage to the cottage I was so proud of, and losing my wonderful horse with whom I’d shared so many adventures. But I was swimming against a rip current. These were things I couldn’t change, and fighting them just made me weary. And so, I gave up. I gave up fighting. I simply existed from day to day in a fog of painkillers – to borrow from Pink Floyd – comfortably numb.
turned me into a bald, nauseous insomniac with a face like a chipmunk and a craving for green beans, and three weeks of radiotherapy ended in utter exhaustion. But what I focused on was how the insomnia gave me an opportunity to write. Armed with research books, mint tea and a brain fizzing like a shaken bottle of pop (due to some of the drugs I was taking) I spent my nights writing like a woman possessed. The result was The Keeper Of Lost Things, a novel that’s so far sold in 15 territories. THE STAFF IN MY CHEMO UNIT TOLD ME THEY’D DISCUSS WHAT SNAZZY OUTFITS I’D TURN UP IN.
Dressing up made me feel better and made other people smile. A fellow patient who had a brain tumour said he watched for me every day just to see what colour boots IT TOOK TWO YEARS OF ANTI-DEPRESSANTS I had on! Some of the people I met during treatment may BEFORE MY ‘ROAD TO DAMASCUS’ MOMENT not still be alive, but the memory of the times we shared FINALLY CAME. I was watching The makes me grateful every day that I am. Abyss – I’m a big Ed Harris fan – for And I am also grateful for the time I got the umpteenth time and one line struck to spend with friends, who sat with me a chord with me: “You have to look with in numerous hospital waiting rooms. My better eyes than that.” Strange, I know, fifth session of chemo was the worst, 1 One of my favourite that one of my favourite films is an and the friend who came that day knew, mantras is ‘Get up, dress underwater disaster movie, but I’m a without a word, that the thing I needed up, show up!’ sucker for an unexpected happy ending. from her was to sit with me silently while 2 And the other is ‘Don’t And when I looked at my own life with I gritted my teeth and got through it. worry – everything is going to be amazing!’ better eyes, I saw something equally Mum couldn’t even bear to say the I have these on the wall unexpected. I saw that, in truth, the ‘C word’. So, every time I went to my in my kitchen and my accident had set me free. I finally parents’ house, I would barge through bathroom, along with loads admitted to myself I’d never really the door bellowing “Cancer, cancer, of other positive messages. needed the stultifying security of a cancer!” At first, she was upset, but 3 I remind myself how far regular salary and promise of a pension. eventually it became our joke. Getting I’ve come and how much Perhaps now it was time to resurrect used to what is just a word took away I still want to do. the fleeting dream I’d had at university the fear. It was just as well. In 2013, the of ‘doing something with English’. day before my last radiotherapy session, Osteopathy had begun to ease my back pain and I got my dad was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a type of a part-time job at the clinic to pay the bills. Finally, I began bone marrow cancer. I went with him to every hospital to write a novel. I had no career, no security, but it was “The very act of taking a RISK exhilarating. The very act of taking a risk rebooted my self-belief and I was doing something I loved. I got signed rebooted my SELF-BELIEF and by a literary agent and there was even the sniff of a I was doing something I LOVED” publishing deal. But there was more rough sea ahead. The difference was that this time, I was better prepared. appointment; the fact it was familiar territory made it so The accident may have tampered with my physical much easier. Once they’d heard his repertoire of terrible backbone, but it had tempered my metaphorical one. jokes, the nurses said we were the perfect double act. I remember the box of tissues on the table, the anxiousIf you were to ask me if I would change anything, for looking nurse, the consultant’s carefully chosen words, and the most part I would say no. Of course, I’m thankful the surprise on his face at my reaction. “Okay, but can we I’ve been cancer free for three years now. I never use please hurry up and deal with it. I’m too busy to have this the ‘all clear’ phrase – I don’t like to tempt fate. I will now.” I wasn’t putting on a brave face. The diagnosis he be an outpatient for some years to come. Dad’s cancer gave me was clear – breast cancer, grade three, slight is incurable but under control and, at 83, he’s still very spread to lymph nodes. But I wasn’t about to let it interfere mobile. As for me, I’m braver, my life is sweeter, my with a dream career I’d taken so long to get started on. relationships are stronger and I’m tougher than I ever I couldn’t choose not to have cancer, but I knew that, like thought I was. I have learnt to look with better eyes. The Keeper Of Lost Things by a Rorschach inkblot, I could see it in more than one way. For more inspirational Ruth Hogan (Two Roads, £16.99) Surgery left me black and blue, six sessions of chemo memoirs, go to REDONLINE.CO.UK 180 REDONLINE.CO.UK MARCH 2017
PHOTOGRAPHS BEN CROCKER, GETTY IMAGES
Ruth’s everyday survival strategies
PROMOTION
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SELF FITNESS
WORK OUT LESS. GET FIT FASTER…
Do less and see more results with short bursts of exercise
We’ve all heard the promises. But with the microworkout, it might just be true, says Brigid Moss
a week for six weeks doubled the exercisers’ endurance capacity. Each of the six sessions alternated 30 seconds of all-out stationary cycling with four minutes of rest, four times. “These short, intense intervals appeared to have some near-magic ability to improve aerobic energy ho wants to get sweaty, out of breath, metabolism,” says Gibala. In the 12 years since, he’s led and red in the face? Actually, you do. research into the benefits of fast and slow workouts. That’s because interval So why are some of us still training – alternating plodding around the park? “Because high effort and rest – it’s different to the standard health is proven to fast-track your fitness, guidelines,” says Gibala. “And, this Measure your intensity with the boost your metabolism and calorie can be an uncomfortable form of Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE), burn all day and, because you get exercise.” But the payoff is huge: the where 1 is ‘nothing at all’ and 10 is results in a fraction of the time a harder you work, the less time you ‘very, very strong (near max)’. normal workout takes, it’s a godsend need to. Right down to Gibala’s THE BEGINNER WORKOUT for the time-poor. The principle isn’t personal go-to ‘microworkout’ – Do this walking if you’re starting out new: it’s standard for elite athletes, three sets of 100%-effort 20-second Duration: 30 minutes and you may already be doing it at sprints alternated with one to two ● 3 minutes: RPE 1 classes such as Psycle (Spinning), or minutes of rest. ● 3 minutes: RPE 3 – breathing with trainers such as The Body If face-reddening effort isn’t your deeply but can still talk Coach, Joe Wicks. But Professor thing, you can still get the benefits, ● 3 minutes: RPE 2 Martin Gibala, the physiologist whose ● Three-minute intervals of alternate says Gibala. Even walking fast and work began this decade’s biggest slow is better than steady walking. RPE 2 and 3 until you reach 30 minutes fitness trend, writes in his new book “Just get out of your comfort zone.” THE TEN BY ONE WORKOUT The One-Minute Workout, that his The two workouts, left, are proven to Time efficient but still suited to mission is to make it an exercise get results, or you can go freestyle, beginners. Gibala’s 2013 study standard. “Ultra-low-dose exercise… aka fartlek (speed play in Swedish), established that doing this protocol three may be the most efficient workout basically go hard until you can’t, times a week over six weeks reduced ever produced,” he says. then back off. In just a few weeks, body fat and increased fitness. Warm On the phone from his office at you’ll be loads fitter with way more up for three minutes with light activity. McMaster University, Canada, energy. Quite a result, for mere Duration: 24 minutes Gibala describes the results of his minutes of feeling red-faced. ● 1 minute: RPE 5 The One-Minute Workout: Science first, seminal experiment on HIIT ● 1 minute: rest Shows A Way To Get Fit That’s (High Intensity Interval Training): ● 1 minute: RPE 6 Smarter, Faster, Shorter by “Our findings were compelling, how ● Alternate rest and one-minute Professor quickly you could elicit changes in sprints until you’ve done 10 sprints, For more fast Martin Gibala performance and human physiology, taking each sprint up in intensity, workouts, go to (Vermilion, just how little exercise it seemingly until the final sprint is at RPE 9. REDONLINE.CO.UK £14.99) ● Cool down for two minutes. required.” Just one 16-minute session
BEFORE YOU START A NEW KIND OF TRAINING OR INCREASE YOUR EXERCISE INTENSITY, CONSULT YOUR DOCTOR. PHOTOGRAPH GALLERYSTOCK
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Fast workouts
MARCH 2017 REDONLINE.CO.UK 183
ASK PHILIPPA PSYCH
Can you have a relationship without having sexual compatibility? asks a reader. That depends on you, says psychotherapist and Red’s agony aunt, Philippa Perry Photograph CAMERON McNEE
When I met my ex partner, it was his dry wit and intelligence that attracted me. We got on really well and we quickly became each other’s number one when it came to sharing good news or needing comfort. Five years later, we have split up and got back together repeatedly. At the moment, we are on a break. The main issue is, we can’t have full sex. Everything is fine while we’re kissing and so on but when we try penetration, he is turned off. I am a few years older – 35 – and the more experienced one. He was less experienced sexually when we met, so I assumed things would work themselves out in time. I have managed to get him to talk about it but it wasn’t easy. He told me he can orgasm but hasn’t been able to with another person. And he told me the fantasies he likes. We went to couples sexual counselling, explored avenues including sharing those fantasies, talking, exercises, the possibility he was gay (he feels he isn’t), but it did
not change anything. He is sorry, but really doesn’t think things will ever change. I can’t help but feel resentful at times. How can I move on, when I still have strong feelings for him? Although I don’t want children, the sex issue won’t go away. On our breaks, I have tried to go on dates with other men, but I don’t find anyone half as attractive or as good company as him. Name and address withheld Your (ex) partner’s sex life is about connecting to his fantasy life and not to another person. This could be – and this is only what I imagine – when he was still an infant, he learnt that others could not meet his emotional needs and he would have to rely upon himself. This made him avoidant of others sexually and possibly sometimes emotionally. It
HOW CAN PHILIPPA HELP YOU?
Do you have a question or a dilemma that Philippa can answer? It could be about your relationships, at work or home, your ambition, confidence or career, your partner or child, motherhood, siblings, parents or friends. Email her in confidence at therapy@redmagazine. co.uk. Read all Philippa’s past columns at Redonline.co.uk.
184 REDONLINE.CO.UK MARCH 2017
sounds as though for him at least, it works. I think he can surrender to his fantasy life, but sexually surrendering to you may never happen. Five years of loving him, then feeling resentment as he cannot have sex with you in a way you might find satisfactory, has left you still emotionally invested in him. You too have a fantasy, one where you will connect emotionally and sexually to this man. This is a dream you may have to let go of. I see your dilemma as this: you could split up and look elsewhere, or you could be partners and not try to be a full part of the sexual side of his life. It may be a compromise too far for you to get your sexual needs met outside of your main emotional partnership or autonomously, but only you can judge that one. We seem to take it for granted that sex is really important for couples. Yet, according to research, a great sex life is not necessarily an indication of well-matched partners. Loving touch is more important than sexual touch. Together with shared values, good communication and understanding each others’ emotions, hugs, pats, lying close and touching in a non-sexual way are the important parts of the bond for many couples. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said, “When marrying, ask yourself this question: do you believe that you will be able to converse well with this person into your old age? Everything else in marriage is transitory.” What Nietzsche does not seem to have taken into consideration is your understandable disappointment and resentment. But I wonder whether, over time, you too could put less importance on sexual compatibility? It sounds as though you are both invested in your relationship and as though sexually your partner is unlikely to change. It is a case of acceptance. Whether it is acceptance and splitting up, or acceptance and staying together, I guess you will both need more time to work it out.
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E N T E R TA I N M E N T
HOROSCOPES
STARS
LIBRA 23rd Sep–23rd Oct There is a strong chance that something crucial is happening in your relationship – perhaps you’re starting over with someone or you’re re-evaluating your commitment, be it personal or professional. For some, these are ideal celestial conditions to get back with an old flame. Just be sure that whatever you decide you want, you don’t force it.
Yasmin Boland reveals what’s in store for you this month Illustration DEBORAH VAN DER SCHAAF
PISCES 19th Feb–20th Mar It’s all about your self-esteem. Use March to work out if you’re valuing yourself highly enough. This could be to do with work, the money you earn, how you rate yourself, your talents or your personal life.
SCORPIO 24th Oct–22nd Nov Use March to start again when it comes to your health and fitness. Whether you began 2017 intending to look after yourself or not, it’s the moment for you to consider if your levels of self-care are adequate. Being a Scorpio is intense. Ask yourself this month, what’s worth worrying about and what isn’t?
ARIES 21st Mar–19th Apr
CANCER 22nd Jun–22nd Jul
SAGITTARIUS 23rd Nov–21st Dec
Now’s the time for you to ask what you really value. Who and what do you hold dear and are you living your life according to those values? As the love and money planet Venus does a rare retrograde in your sign, you have a chance to re-evaluate everything. The new moon boosts any exciting new projects.
There is a lot of energy in your career zone this month. It’s the month for you to lay down your 2017 career goals – put them in writing. If you want to renegotiate your pay, do it now. Your bosses and clients will be more open than usual. Note that in relationships, it’s important not to push too hard.
Saturn is the heavy planet who demands a lot, and he’s been in your sign since 2014. Hence life has demanded a lot of you. However, it’s important that you don’t forget to have fun. This is important for any sign but especially for you – as the most fun-loving sign. What is a good time worth to you?
TAURUS 20th Apr–20th May
LEO 23rd Jul–23rd Aug
CAPRICORN 22nd Dec–19th Jan
Focus on your inner life this month – that could be spirituality, or your fears, for example. If old worries about love or money resurface, don’t run away from your feelings. Think about where they came from and see if you can heal them. A professional breakthrough could lead to good things, including working abroad.
Now is the time to clear your mind of any negative self-talk. If you can nix negativity, your life can truly change. Vow only to say positive things for one day. Even if you fail within an hour, it will show you how positively or negatively you’re thinking. Positive thoughts and words attract positive events.
Take time to think about what you really value at home and when it comes to family. You may find that the places, people or things which you thought really mattered to you, in fact don’t so much. For some, this is a month of looking backwards to see how far you have come. For others, it’s a time of nostalgia.
GEMINI 21st May–21st Jun
VIRGO 24th Aug–22nd Sep
AQUARIUS 20th Jan–18th Feb
Make 10 wishes as the new moon takes place on 28th March. It’s an acknowledged fact, even in serious business schools, that writing down goals is a very powerful exercise. Becoming clear on your intentions is the best way to ‘make things happen’. It’s partly the intent and then the follow-through action you take.
It’s all about sex and money for you this month. And if you think that sounds good, here is a disclaimer: you’re actually being given a chance to think about your sex life and your finances, and to work out where you’re going right and wrong. Where are you putting in a lot of effort and not getting much back?
Over the past few years, many of you have developed something of an uncanny ability to blurt out things when they’re not quite appropriate. This is endearing, and the people who love you mind less than you think. But are you letting it get out of hand? Is it costing you personally or professionally? Think about it.
MARCH 2017 REDONLINE.CO.UK 193
MY FAVOURITE THING
HOLLY FULTON For the Scottish fashion designer, a hand-painted wooden horse is a link to her family history
F
olk art is a big inspiration for me. I love anything handmade, particularly if it’s Naive artistically. This hand-painted horse is from the early 1900s. In those days, there were a lot of Clydesdale horses working on Scottish farms, and travellers would go around painting the horses and selling the paintings to the farmers. They traced around a template, so the horses were always the same shape, but they would use bright colours in the livery and adapt them to each farm in that way. Sometimes they’d paint the wooden stencil itself, which is what this is, and sell that. Sort of like the Scottish folk art equivalent of those china dogs that sit on the mantelpiece. My grandparents lived in rural Aberdeenshire, and it was a tough life. They didn’t have many things that were
194 REDONLINE.CO.UK MARCH 2017
decorative so these brightly painted horses must have been quite incongruous. I love the idea of these rough farming folk positioning hand-painted horses on the mantelpiece. They must have looked quite startling at the time, in that context. This horse didn’t belong to my grandparents, but they’re the reason I collect them. I like to collect things that are sentimental. I also collect sweetheart pincushions from the war. And, because these are Scottish, they have a particularly strong connection for me with my family as well. They’re quite unusual to find, but now I have several of them at home. They stand together on a long shelf, like a little troop. They please and fascinate me every time I see them. Hollyfulton.com
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Photographs PETER PEDONOMOU